England makes the chase (a record chase for England)!
India 416 & 245
England 284 & 378/3
England win by 7 wickets.
So this record 4th innings chase was essentially accomplished by 2 partnerships (and these 4 men had ALL of England’s scoring):
Lees/Crawley 107
Root/Bairstow 269
Bairstow got his 4th consecutive century in a Test match. Root got 4 in the series with India (he had 3 last year).
India batted for 166.4 overs.
England chased them down in 138.1 overs.
Bazball is probably here to stay for England, but it will be interesting to see it as a road show. That won’t happen until February of 2023 when England go to New Zealand. Next up is South Africa in August starting at Lord’s on the 17th.
Credit where credit is due, and most of that goes to the ENG players and leaders but I think there might be something for the curators who have produced some very good decks with just enough for batters and bowlers over the 5 days.
One thing England have done in each of these 4 winning Tests, away from the batting which has so obviously turned a corner in attitude and “intent”, is that they have taken 20 wickets in each, something they’ve struggled with recently (although they did it in Hobart in Jan, setting themselves a target of 271 - very gettable in the new Bazball era!)
Well, that was absurd. I was thinking overnight that 119 more wasn’t the walk in the park that people were making it out to be - England have a long tail and India would likely get a final burst with the new ball while they still needed 30 or 40. I checked the score when I went for lunch and it was all over. India never got their hands on the new ball as their bowlers went for six an over with the old one.
Chases of 300+, never mind 350+ aren’t supposed to be easy. Even good batting sides (and England haven’t been a good batting side for some years) would expect to grind such a target down, wear out the bowlers and - with luck and a following wind - finally get over the finish line five or six down in the last session. Yes, the pitch was flat, the ball was doing very little and the bowling lacked depth (Shardul Thakur had a game he will be trying to forget for some time), but still 378 in the fourth innings.
And they were 85/5 chasing 400+ in their first.
I wondered how Jonny Bairstow would do against Bumrah and co. Well, two centuries, one to save the game and the second to deliver the win, pretty much answered that. The closest equivalent I can think of is Gordon Greenidge thrashing England all round Lords in 1984. That was a great player, at the very top of his game - and playing against England. English players don’t do things like that.
So, talking with my Indian co-workers today (although American I have long established myself as an adopted pom where cricket is concerned. Their position was “bad look for Bumrah, but wait until they try that on spin-friendly pitches!”.
My response was “when they have nothing to lose (and everything to win) and you have everything to lose, watch out!”. Bumrah really need to get out of the “just don’t lose” mindset - it loses gridiron games, baseball games, hockey games, and, apparently, cricket matches. Playing not lose often results in…wait for it…losing.
Bit of a curious reversal of the expected norms.
With their squad hit by COVID, SL have struggled to field a Test standard side and crumbled badly in the 1st Test on a badly crumbling pitch.
This pitch is, at least today, of better standard. Though if you to watch the highlights dismissals of Warner, Khawaja (both bowled) and Lambuschagne (stumped) to absolute peaches of deliveries you’d think it was more than sufficiently helpful for the tweakers.
The issue for SL is that despite being on their home deck the visitors have the better spin attack. And despite a lot of experience on their home deck the SL batters seem less well equipped to counter a good spinning attack, being overly reliant on sweeping. In 1st Test Cameron Green top scored in his debut on subcontinental pitches. Their keeper Dickwella seems less assured than AUS’s Carey glovework on a pitch with turn and bounce.
Today AUS held sway for most of the day, perhaps one wicket too many lost for full dominance. It wasn’t Bazball. Lambuschagne took 159 to compile a century (his first away from Australia) built around primarily playing square. Smith’s 109no took 212 (his first ton for some time) was built on playing imperiously straight. I wouldn’t rule out him getting a double today if his partners can hang in there. He knows his place in the batting pantheon has been taken by Root and that was starting to be manifest in his play and attitude. Today was the Smudge of old in testing conditions.
With two debutants amongst their bowlers, SL were able to bowl sufficient wicket taking deliveries to have won the day. But Dickwella had a very poor day and there were way too many half trackers and full tosses to capitalise.
For SL playing at home their conventional Test strategy is win the toss, score big, let the spinners loose. Which is exactly the strategy that AUS are deploying.
Yes, would have preferred to get the total above 400.
I guess you bowl to the total you have.
Everything seems gun-barrel straight from Cummings & Starc so far.
AUS were seriously considering bringing in Maxwell for Starc but possibly Head’s bowling in 1st Test offered enough cover because Starc might be a handful if the pitch has deteriorated when SL bat again with Lyon making merry from the other end.
SL finish on 184/2, and will be eyeing up a lead if they get a good couple of partnerships tomorrow, and they’ve got some batting to come by the look of it.
Amazing that 184-2 off 63 is considered “grinding it out” these days. I remember 210-5 off 80 being a perfectly respectable days play in the 1970s and 1980s. Especially if you had spinners operating.
Hmm. I looked up a bunch of batters strike rates in the 1990-2010 period and they seem he be between 40 and 55 for the most part.
Except the Australians. Looking at the batting lineup in Gilly’s last test (2008), ALL the Aussie top 7 had a career strike rate over 50, and Gilly and Symonds a lot over 50. That was the Australian revolutionary idea of “score at 4 and over and you’ll never draw a match you could have won.”
But that was a couple of decades after Boycott. The generation of Atherton, Stewart and Nasser were perfectly content with 3 an over from the top order. In Alec Stewart’s last match (2003) the England batting lineup all had career strike rates below 50, except Trescothick and Flintoff who were 55 and 60.
Well, England wasn’t very good in the 90s, but I take your point. One of the things that England under Michael Vaughan did well was take that Australian mentality to heart - and Trescothick and Flintoff were a big part of that. Test strike rates generally seem to have increased since then, and not just in England.
Sri Lanka are currently 349/4 (at almost exactly 3 an over, still, consistent if nothing else). Interesting that they aren’t getting any hundreds, but lots of scores of 50+ (Chandimal is 73*, so could well ton up, but still). Australia’s score was built on Smith and Labuschagne’s tons, with little of note below. So far, only SL’s opener Nissanka has failed.
Two days left. My personal WinViz has SL 50%, Aus 20%, Draw 30%
There’s 2 days left, lots of time. Weird things happen in the second innings and it looks like this pitch is going to do a bit, so I’d suggest that Aus will have to bat well in the second innings, but their best chance of winning is get bowled out 200 ahead
Still 180 overs to play.
AUS can blow it with a poor 2nd dig.
SL can get caught on a deteriorating deck on the last day.
Think a SL win is more likely than draw, AUS win 3rd option
