I only saw the first half of his innings before I had to crash, but I thought he batted extremely welll, particularly when hitting down the ground.
India looking untroubled in the second dig with Rahul and Pant looking good for hundreds after Gill went early this morning.
Going to be a tricky declaration decision if it comes to that late today.
India know that England as currently set up will try to chase anything - alright, let’s say anything up to 450 - so less fear of pushing them to play for the draw. So more a question of how much time you want Bumrah to have this evening.
In which case losing Pant even at this stage is a blow, because he offered quicker runs and thus more time to bowl tonight.
Declaration not going to be an issue now! India collapsing again.
They certainly are! 355 isn’t a bad lead, but could have been more easily enough.
A fixture set up for a Bazball finish ENG needing 350 on the last day with all wickets in hand. ENG have the firepower to do this in 60 overs with a bit of British luck. Have made a steady start at 3 rpo which is fine to wear down the attack. How they handle Jadeja will be important as he’ll be tasked with locking down one end while the seamers rotate coming down the hill. If that succeeds and the batters have to take more chances against Bumrah, Siraj & co I think IND should win handily … as you would normally expect having scored 5 tons.
IND burning reviews won’t help their cause.
Bloody good effort by the Poms up to lunch
Bumrah, who was called “the most complete fast bowler ever” by a BBC commentator on Day 3, went wicketless on day 5.
England made it look easy in the finish, with the first wicket only falling once more than half the runs had been gotten. It’s the first time ever in a first class match that a side has scored 5 centuries in a game and lost.
Well that was a monumental task successfully achieved with minimal consternation.
A demonstration that you can adopt T20 batting strategies to Test cricket a lot more successfully than T20 bowling strategies.
Also, on the basis of a single match evidence, that Gil’s captaincy is below par from his predecessor, which was itself below par.
To the extent that lower order batting is indicative of anything, India’s bottom 6 scored 64 runs over 2 innings. Can’t really fault Gill for that, can you? Dominating loss by India.
Yes, India contrived to lose 7/41 (from 430/3) and 6/31 (from 333/4). They also dropped a hatful of catches, which is always a killer in batting-friendly conditions.
The hard thing for India is that their key players (Jaiswal, Rahul, Gill, Pant and Bumrah) all did well, but they ended up losing comfortably.
Some more stats - the match aggregate of 1673 is the highest ever for a game between England and India, it was only the third-ever Test with four innings totals over 350 and India’s 835 is not only the most they’ve ever scored in a losing cause but the 4th-highest aggregate by any losing side in a Test. (Two of the top three were also losses to England in the Bazball era, which says something about Bazball).
The worry for England is that their bowling looked toothless against India’s top order. But next Test they may just have Atkinson and even Archer fit again. And Bumrah is probably only going to play two of the remaining four games.
Well to the extent he selected guys who did not contribute with the bat, the ball or in the field, yes.
But more specifically his fielding placements were reactive and ineffective at pressuring the batters into errors. He set fields without a slip at a venue and in a match where 25%+ of runs and almost all chances came on the off-side behind point.
Sure, that wasn’t helped by his tier 2s not bowling tight enough, and poor catching. But he bowled Bumrah & Siraj in tandem for too long, then changed them both and maintained the new pairing which bled runs from both ends. Pressure off.
He was hoping something would happen, not trying to make something happen.
It was a very big chase, done very well but required less than 4 rpo. (almost) 200 runs came in boundaries in 82 overs. 25 of those overs were from Krishnan/Thakur going at almost 6 rpo.
Is it really Gill that made these selections, or the BCCI?
I’m definitely not knowledgeable enough about test cricket to understand optimal fielding positions, but I suspect that one could always poke holes at the losing captain in a game of reasonably equal sides. Fact is, a couple of average catches probably changes the outcome of this one.
The BCCI Senior Men’s Selection Committee (five members) will have picked the tour squad of 18. If India follows the pattern of other Test playing nations, who plays in which tour match will be determined by Gill, Pant & Gambir.
I’m not disputing you so much as trying to understand your point.
If the batters were scoring runs via play off-side & behind point, and Gil was setting fielders reactively, then how was there not fielders there? It sounds like your objections contradict themselves.
Or are you perhaps suggesting that different batter/bowler combinations played differently and Gil seemed to always be setting fielding to defeat the previous batter/bowler pair? IOW, fighting the last war so to speak?
Again not disputing your contention; just trying to understand it.
It seemed to me, especially in the last day, that Gil wasn’t really captaining at all but that Rahul was setting the field.
Only five years ago, England would have fallen over for 220 trying to bat out a draw, probably just after tea. But this England doesn’t settle for draws.
England have been Bazballing long enough now that India must have known that they didn’t have enough. The second innings batting collapse (along with the first innings batting collapse) must worry the Indian coaches.
Having said that, it wasn’t as easy as England made it look.
That sorta thing.
First off, he’s gotta take 10 wickets.
He sets a field to induce a catch in the slips, and leaves a gap in the covers to entice the batters to play the drive. That’s good. If his bowlers are good enough to serve a ball which isn’t quite the right line/length for the drive the batter risks nicking off into the slips for a catch. But the batter plays it well and gets a boundary. So in reaction he takes a man out of slips to plug the gap. Then the batter gets a edge through the now open slips for another boundary.
He’s trying to force the batter to play onto the offside where he has a packed field. Batter takes a risk, hits across the line (which is what Gill wants) and gets a legside boundary. Gill then moves cover to mid-on to cut off that boundary, and creates a gap on the off side that the batter can play through with more safely.
Stable doors & horses
It plays on the bowlers approach. Crawley and Duckett are almost different species. One RH, the other LH. One is a 30cm taller than the other. One plays in front of the crease, the other benind the crease. A delivery that Crawley would drive, Duckett might well cut or pull. So you need profoundly different strategies … and if your captain changes the field after every boundary, then you are getting the message that saving runs is more important than the strategy for taking the wickets,
Makes sense. Thank you. Fighting the last war indeed.
For damned sure your field needs to be set up in a way that complements your bowler’s strongest suits, and the bowler needs to be aware enough of the field’s disposition to bowl in the way likely to force the batter’s trajectory into the dense part of the field crew.
If those two components of your team are out of sync you are, in American vernacular, Screwed.
The third leg of that triad is “where the batsman is strongest”. A good batter will absolutely try and play shots that try and force the fielding captain to do exactly that. But India seemed to buckle too quickly.