A little late, this, but I felt it would be moral cowardice just to let the series slip away without comment.
Comment: Oh, England.
Less one-eyed comment: Well done to India, especially Kohli who clearly knows how to knock the spirit out the opposing team.
I’ve been following the Test series, mainly via Cricinfo, and it seems to me the usual thing has been largely to blame - English batsmen haven’t got enough experience of playing on turning wickets against top-class spin bowling. Even if they all went to the IPL it wouldn’t really help because you can get away with a lot in limited overs that is exposed over the longer format.
On the other hand, India have batted extremely well for most of their innings, with our spinners not quite having the bite/consistency needed to make significant inroads.
Selecting 4 seamers for the preious test certainly didn’t help, nor did Hameed’s injury. Both sides have fielded pretty poorly.
After today there is still some hope of a consolation victory, but the fact they scored 400 in their last first innings and still lost heavily will no doubt be weighing on their minds.
I think next year’s Ashes could be a really entertaining and competitive series, with Australia coming out of a painful transition period and England (probably) still led by Cook but with some promising young players coming through.
Yeah, there have been flashes of good news for England, mainly involved in finding new top-order batsmen (although following his century Jennings has looked less than solid). So with some new blood coming in things might look up. South Africa will be a baptism of fire though.
Quality English spinners seem to come along by accident rather than design - I don’t think anyone is quite sure how Swann got so good, and there’s no sense of planned development for Rashid or other prospects. Dragging up Batty in the hope he could do an Udall and then having no idea what to do when he couldn’t is as close as we seem to have got to a strategy.
I guess spin bowlers in England suffer from a similar problem to the batsmen in terms of technique, albeit to a lesser degree - they rarely get a helpful pitch, so they’re forced to adopt different tactics, as well as perhaps being hammered more than they ‘should’ be in their early careers.
Having never played much less coached the game, does anyone know if modern bowling machines good enough to replicate good spin bowling? I would assume a bowling machine is generally more effective at helping a batsman with their technique against fast bowling than it is at testing the more subtle variations of flight and length that a spin bowler can employ.
I’ve followed this fairly closely - always much more in hope than in expectation (I kind of assumed we’d go down 5-0).
If you can divide cricket up into three areas, selection, strategy and execution, England have been markedly worse in all areas than India, who have proven to be justifiably near the top of the tree in Test Cricket - it will be interesting to see how they travel, but they seem unbeatable at home.
With respect to selection for the tour overall firstly, England were in trouble from the off because the spinners they have are not as good as India’s, and consequently we were always at risk of failing to take 20 wickets - we probably did not even select our best spinners (Leach and Rayner) for the tour. Batty, Ansari, Duckett and Ballance were all varying shades of poor and, of these, I can only see Duckett coming back once he’s sorted out a couple of defensive deficiencies that India exposed effectively. Ballance is done at international level - and I think everyone knows it, as he was approached to be captain of Yorkshire (who think he won’t play any international cricket, so is someone who will be around all year) and he accepted (indicating he probably knows the jig is up too). Also, anyone realise that Steven Finn was on tour? Why? He’s done nothing - literally - he’d have been better off being allowed to go and play Grade Cricket or Big Bash or something. So, from the off, not enough class in the squad for spin and at least two empty batting slots and one bowler who was never used in the tour party. This doesn’t seem a good use of resources.
Selection within the series has also betrayed some lack of ideas about what to do in these conditions and possibly no idea who is actually a good cricketer in them. Why it took so long for Hameed to get into the side is anyone’s guess. The bowling selection has been…odd? I don’t think I agree that going with 4 seamers was a mistake - that seems like outcome based analysis to me (we wouldn’t be querying this if England had actually taken the chances that came their way - more on this later). For this England side/touring party, I don’t believe there’s any such thing as a three spinner pitch, because the third spinner offers no control. We’d be better off not taking overs off someone who is only going at 2.5 an over and giving them to someone who is going at 4 an over, because he’s not Test match quality. In sum, I just don’t think they’ve evaluated the players that they’ve got in front of them well enough.
Moving onto strategy, Kohli is in great nick - a super player, so the following may be harsh; England seem to have no fucking clue what the plan is to get him out. He’s not the only one either. Cook’s captaincy, particularly of his spin bowlers, has been poor. His field placings seem to be weirdly passive, even when England have runs on the board. He didn’t seem to have any trust in them at the start of the tour (as reflected by the field placings, which simply allowed them to be milked with no danger), until he suddenly realised Rashid was improving and then over bowled him. The thinking behind the batting strategy also seems to be really muddled - claiming that we must attack and make things happen ignores that the best bats on England’s side (Hameed, Root and Mo) didn’t just try and smash it around. Those three were probably right all along.
Execution wise, India have trumped England here too. They have sold their wickets dearly, rotated their bowlers wisely and taken more chances in the field than England have done. England have created some chances but routinely shelled them (dropping over 300 runs worth of chances in the 4th Test - merely taking Kohli’s would have kept them in the game on 1st innings). The regression in fielding standards is pretty worrying - they must improve this area of the game ASAP. Related to the batting strategy points above, it’s fine to have attack as a strategy if you can execute the shots - but frequently, we’ve given wickets away with poor shot selection and bad execution. Our spinners improved whilst Saqlain was on tour coaching them (and he should be given a contract ASAP as far as I am concerned) but they don’t extract turn and bounce, nor seem to get the same drift as the Indian spinners. They’re just not quite good enough against these batsmen. At no point did it seem we were capable of getting the ball to reverse swing effectively either - this neutered the pace attack, even if they weren’t getting heavily hit. We didn’t execute much of anything as a unit particularly well is, I guess, my point.
So second best all around. Bright spots: Hameed looks like a real talent - I look forward to him boring the arse off the whole world for the next 20 years, whilst letting everyone else play shots. Early days on Jennings but, along with Cook, maybe we’ve got a top order there that will solve the issues that we have had over the period since Strauss retired. Mo appears to be finally convincing people of his proper role - number 5 and second spinner. Rashid improved a lot and indicated that we need a proper spin bowling coach on the books. Root scored a lot of 50s - though never really kicked on to put us in an impregnable position. Stokes appears to be working out when he needs to defend; it will be interesting to see if he can put that together with an attack in the same innings. And that’s about it for positives.
India are damn good. Kohli really lived up to his billing, Ashwin too, and I have a lot of time for Pujara, Jadeja and both Yadav’s. They are not flawless in the field but out worked England there. It will be interesting to see how they approach upcoming tours outside India. With their line up tailor made for Asian conditions and Australia currently rebuilding, there’s a good chance for them to cement their place as a number 1 Test line up. I’d like to see India in SA and England - if they can knock both of them off, they erase all doubts as to their quality. As it is, I still think their the best side in World Cricket at the moment - it’s just a question of how good they can be.
That’s a very good summary, Cumbrian.
In particular, I appreciate the point that England don’t so much lack a plan, as they lack even basic understanding of what assets England actually have that could form the basis of the plan. What are our players strengths and weaknesses and how can get the best out of them, as individuals and as a team? No one seems to be really sure, or even interested in finding out.
There’s also the questions about man management and morale. There’s no obvious signs of strife in the dressing room, but nor can people be particularly happy with the way things have gone and you wonder if you can see that in some of the desperate batting, for example, that we’ve been graced with. Positivity and attack are all very well but if that’s the only approach encouraged it can lead to some fairly witless stuff when what’s needed is patient grinding.
My feeling this time around is that our bowling is not up to the task of taking 20 wickets. The batsmen haven’t actually done that badly, but we’ve repeatedly failed to make any inroads at all into the Indian batting lineup.
The last time England toured India, in 2012, Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar kept them under control.
I wonder what the highest first innings score is for a team that goes on to lose by an innings. In the fourth test England posted 400, am wondering if they can do it after posting 477 in the fifth.
India are currently 96 ahead with only 5 wickets down, so this is as good a chance as any to go for the record!
Again, though, after a decent score on the board from the batsmen, the Indians have shown us up.
Cook: I wish I could get Kohli and Pujara out for less than 20 each
Monkey’s Paw uncurls
As if to prove it’s not about one or two talismanic batsmen - England’s bowlers can’t get control, and India have too many quality batsmen. Cook will be remembering that he dropped Nair on 34 - but if it wasn’t him, it would be Ashwin. Or Jadeja.
Now all that’s required is for England to be set 3.5 sessions of batting to save the match on a decent enough wicket, and collapse utterly in 45 overs as they try to play “positive” cricket.
There have been just 5 Tests where a team scored 400 in their first innings and lost by an innings:
#1 5th Test: England v Australia at The Oval, Aug 23-27, 2001
Australia 4-625 (Langer 102, ME Waugh 120, S Waugh 157)
England 432 (Ramprakash 133, Trescothick 55)
England 181 (Gough 39, Stewart 34)
Australia won by an innings and 25 runs
#2 5th Test: England v Australia at The Oval, Aug 16-22, 1930
England 405 (Sutcliffe 161, Wyatt 64)
Australia 695 Bradman 232, Woodfull 110)
England 251 (Hammond 60, Sutcliffe 54)
Australia won by an innings and 39 runs
#3 1st Test: Pakistan v India at Multan, Mar 28-Apr 1, 2004
India 675 (Sehwag 309, Tendulkar 194)
Pakistan 407 (Hameed 91, Inzamam-ul-Haq 77)
Pakistan 216 (Youhana 1223, Farhat 24)
India won by an innings and 52 runs
#4 4th Test: India v England at Mumbai, Dec 8-12, 2016
England 400 (Jennings 112, Buttler 76)
India 631 (Vijay 136, Kohli 235, Yadav 104)
England 195 (Root 77, Bairstow 51)
India won by an innings and 36 runs
**#5 **1st Test: England v Sri Lanka at Cardiff, May 26-30, 2011
Sri Lanka 400 (Jayawardene 112, Paranavitana 66)
England 496 (Cook 133, Trott 203, Bell 103)
Sri Lanka 82 (Perera 20, Jayawardene 15)
England won by an innings and 14 runs
source:Cricinfo’s Statsguru
Over on this side of the cricketing world Australia maintained a 28 year unbeaten record at the Gabba beating Pakistan who really blew their first innings. Chasing a solid total of 429 they were 8-67 before clawing their way to 142. Set an improbable 490 to win batting last Pakistan just batted and batted with application and even a wagging tail to finish all out 450.
If you watch highlight clip of day 5 (Pakistan began the day 8-382 needing 108 more for the win) Starc’s delivery to dismiss Shafiq, a batsman on 137, with a ball that’s 54 overs old and him bowling his 38th of the innings, was an absolute rip-snorter. As a batsman all you can hope is that you are at the bowlers end when that happens.
And to top it off on a day when Steve Smith almost lost the plot as fielding captain, his quick thinking ended the innings in a dramatic, almost farcical way.
Well, England have at least survived with no loss of wicket overnight, a decent effort in the circumstances. Presumably Kohli won’t be that fussed if they run out of overs tomorrow, having shown their superiority over England in every department. Even Greg Chappell would probably have let a player making his maiden hundred turn it into a triple, despite that potentially costing the win.
I think it is fair to say that England don’t have the spinners to win the game, that they have obviously failed to take 20 wickets and the bowlers have to shoulder some blame (as well as the selectors).
I don’t think it’s true that the batsmen haven’t done that badly though. England have won the toss 4 times out of 5 and batted first on each of those occasions, in theory getting the pitch before it starts spinning. They’ve had one lead on first innings all tour. Even when they have scored 400 and 477, India have then gone on to 600+ and 700+. Those England 1st innings scores look good but they’re not - as the Indian scores showed, they’re probably short by, at minimum, 100 runs. India have bowled well but England, on pitches that have the least turn that they’re going to see in the match, frequently gave wickets away in the first innings.
In short, everyone should be shouldering blame, not just the bowling unit and/or the selectors, in my opinion.
Everyone in an England shirt today looked like they just wanted to come home. Bayliss in interview afterwards hardly gave Cook a ringing endorsement as captain. I expect Root to installed by the time of the first Test v SA.
Can’t see the Aussie highlight as not in Oz, but I am lead to believe that was an all-timer Starc bowled at Shafiq. Probably just as well, I bet immediately prior to that ball being bowled, there would have been a few nervous faces at potentially letting a 490 run target be achieved.
I foolsihly went for a shower at with 50 to get and when I got back, maych was over. 
Fucking heartbreaking I tell you.
If you’re watching, never stop. If you hadn’t been watching, don’t start. It’s the only way to be safe.
Stats fun with Nair: He started his third ever Test innings with an average of 8.5; he finished with an average of 160.0. Excluding debut matches, is that a record?
My point is that they’ve been able to go on to 600+ because England don’t have the bowlers to trouble the batsmen.
Before this series, no tourist had scored a hundred since Michael Clarke in Feb 2013. In that time, India scored 15 centuries at home, against Australia, South Africa, West Indies and New Zealand. In this series, England has scored 6.
That’s not to say I don’t think there’s an issue with our batting - I think there has been for over a year, especially in the top order. But I think it’s been a bit better in this series.
Although, given that your point is actually that our batting isn’t as good as India’s, I’d have to agree with you. Especially in this innings, where it hasn’t been the usual Kohli show.
Anyone think we can survive tomorrow? I’m honestly expecting them to be at least 7 down by the time I get up to check.
I think we’re in violent agreement, yes.
My general point is that these have been, for the most part, traditional Indian decks, where the game progresses very rapidly when the ball starts spinning, but that it won’t do much until late on Day 3 at the very earliest. The implication being that you have to score big, especially if you win the toss. Some of the series you’re referring to were played on frigging minefields - the SA series in particular was a procession of low scoring on both sides - so it’s no surprise that, in particular the away, batsmen weren’t scoring heavily.
Their spinners are tighter than ours, sure, but we also gave wickets away in the first innings rather than getting out to unplayable deliveries (Cook waltzing down the track and getting stumped, Root routinely getting out once set, airy drives from Bairstow, all being cases in point - without getting to the point that Ballance and Duckett were empty shirts). We weren’t as good as them with the bat but this could have been 1-0 or 2-0 instead of 3-0 or 4-0, if we’d batted better in the top order.
The, somewhat sad, thing is that though we have been thumped, and have been shown to have glaring holes in our team and selection policies, it’s not the worst tour I can remember. Not by a long chalk. The last Ashes tour for instance had no redeeming features in it at all - with the exception of the emergence of Stokes - and there were tours to the Windies in the early 90s which were exercises in futility. We’ve been thumped but it has been worse.
In answer to your final question - I think England are going to lose here. Sometime in the middle of the final session probably.
Oh god, there’s an exercise. What about the 2007 Ashes tour, so full of hope after the 2005 win, and then Steve Harmison runs up and bowls it to first slip and things don’t noticeably improve afterwards.
I’ve always liked watching the WI tours, because they are in the evening in the UK and you can just get home from work and watch. All the England tours in the 90s seemed to be exercises in futility anyway, so it wasn’t like I was expecting us to win.
Is 06-07 worse than the 2013-14 Ashes jaunt?
On the one hand, the 06- 07 Aussies still had Warne, McGrath, Ponting, Langer, Hayden, Gilchrist et al playing for them, so getting gubbed was not as dispiriting as getting hammered by a side manifestly less talented than that one. On the other hand, we thought we were quite good and then just got smashed to bits in 2006/7, which was a bit of a surprise, where there was hope.
2013-14 saw the side disintegrate - Trott to mental health, Swann’s arm fell off, KP fell out with everyone in what turned out to be terminal fashion, whilst some of the least qualified England cricketers wound up playing Test matches (Boyd Rankin anyone?) when the wheels totally came off. We’d also won the previous tour, so we knew we could do it, so also pretty dispiriting.
13-14 is probably objectively worse, given who we lost to personnel wise versus 2006/7, that we’d won three series on the spin and the tour just spiraled into a million pieces. But I can’t be that objective, as for me, the deciding factor is one word. Adelaide. That 2006 Adelaide match haunts English cricket even still. No first innings total is ever safe after you’ve seen Adelaide happen to your side. It’s written on the inside of my eyelids every time I close my eyes during a match England are doing well in.
The 93-94 tour of the Windies was pretty abject too. Destroyed by wide margins in the first 3 Test matches, including the 46 all out match and the one win England got being quickly eclipsed by us giving up 375 runs to Brian Lara for a world record.
The previous winter’s tour to India I remember as being bloody awful too - losing the Test series 3-0 and not being in any game (8 wickets and two innings defeats).
The 80-81 tour of the Windies was pretty bad - though only losing 2-0 on the field and there was Holding’s over to Boycott in amongst it all. Political problems because England selected Robin Jackman - and the Windies weren’t happy with a cricketer of South African origin playing in the apartheid era - and Ken Barrington, out there in a coaching/managerial capacity, died. That tour was so rough, it had a body count.