Stoinis almost pulled it off. Interesting bowler selection for NZ in the last over.
Good straws, these.
There’s a not insignificant chance this game ends today. Leach has been very good this morning. Root is bowling. They’re both causing problems and Foakes is an ever present danger for India behind the stumps. England have obviously misread the pitch - they probably should have picked another spinner.
Commentator has just intimated that Stokes is a pretty decent off-spinner (and was warming up bowling some this morning) - heck, why not just give everyone a go?
As long as they don’t try Dom Sibley. He bowled some leg spin against Pakistan in the summer and, honestly, I am better (and I am crap).
Root takes 2 in 3 balls. 125-8.
If this gets into day 3 it will be very interesting.
It’s in the nature of talented young athletes that they will fancy themselves in every discipline. And coming up, most county/international batters probably were decent to good bowlers at a particular level. But one day they get a tap on the shoulder from the coach saying "Alright Dom, just focus on the batting from now, eh?
Having seen this before checking the score this morning, I assumed it was sarcasm. Just switched on and good grief. Root now has 3 wickets for no runs conceded. No England fan in their wildest dreams could have hoped for this.
Proper Boys Own stuff from Root here.
Hard-earned pessimism suggests that this is the perfect time for an unfeasible last wicket 50-stand.
If India get a lead of 50, every chance England get shot out for 100 and India only win by 4 wickets or something silly like that.
This opening session has been bonkers. Root currently averages 6 less with the ball than the bat for his career due to this session. In India, his bowling average is sub 20 and his batting average is 50 plus.
India lead by 33 on first innings.
Root took 6.2-3-8-5. Those are good figures. Still think picking an actual second spinner would have been a good idea. Seamers are seemingly not threatening. Anderson bottled an end up but Sharma and Crawley scored easily enough against seam up bowling. Spinners have ripped everyone out at no runs.
God knows what England need to get here. As many as possible obviously - a lead of 150 would be difficult to chase you’d think. 200 would be brilliant. 250 would be wildest dreams (but maybe an indication that it’s got easier to score…)
Root, having taken all the wickets, is now going to have to score all the runs it appears.
I have actual work to do today, for crying out loud. If they’re going to stage a two-day test match they could at least do it on the weekend like civilised people.
56/5 for gods sake. It’s hard to see this going into tomorrow now.
…and that’s the problem with this pitch. It’s not that it’s unfair, the issue is that we’ve got this magnificent stadium with a crowd in it and we might not even get two days of play.
Yeah, if this is how future test matches are going to be in Ahmedabad, the ROI on that stadium investment will surely drop.
I have seen people make the point that most batters got out to straight balls. It was playing for turn that wasn’t there that did them in, not monster unplayable turn from Day 1. By that argument, this is more a case of groupthink than a demonic pitch.
I haven’t looked at all the wickets with a view to categorising them as poor batting Vs good bowling/extravagant turn but from memory quite a few fall into the former bucket.
As Alastair Cook pointed out, you can’t look at the wickets in isolation. A core question is how much did the ball turn in the deliveries prior?
They flashed up a stat that said the average turn was the same as the 2nd test in Chennai. If a load of straight deliveries took wickets (and didn’t in Chennai), that means it turned even more when it did turn.
I think this is more about England’s lack of facility playing against spin - for long established reasons to do with English conditions and the periods of the season that red ball cricket is played here. But it can be true that England were bad at playing spin whilst also being true that the pitch was bad. The ball was going through the surface on Day 1, the game didn’t get to Day 3, a part time bowler took 5-8 and good players of spin on the Indian side also struggled. Seems to me it’s obvious that this didn’t give us a good contest between bat and ball, which further compounded England’s usual failings.
Yeah, but everyone across 2 teams? For three innings? There was something in the pitch that was more difficult than “some balls didn’t turn as much”, I feel. Shortest game since world war II!
I’m with Cumbrian on this - regardless of how poorly England played the spin, the bowlers probably had too much of a say too early in the piece.
Even in the final innings, England didn’t take any wickets but more than one delivery from Leach went through at shin height off a good length. That sort of variable bounce shouldn’t really be seen on Day 2.
It annoying because it seems like sour grapes. But like I said, more than one thing can be true at once. This pitch can be bad and England can also be bad, certainly worse than India.