Let us leave aside the result for a moment and exult in what a great Test match this was. From the opening salvos on Thursday until the last gasp of Monday, all manner of results were possible. That India won the game after a final day where England looked nailed-on favourites — until a mad hour undid them — shows what a mutable and thrilling form of cricket this is and has been for the last 144 years.
The will-they-won’t-they uncertainty kept fans on tenterhooks all day, something no other sport, or white-ball cricket match for that matter, can do so deliciously for so long. Watching for seven hours can be a long slog but oh so worth it on days like this, even if frustration is where it ended for England’s supporters.
Despite having seen and been involved in more than my fair share of England cricketing calamities over the years, I must confess I did not see India’s win coming, at least not until they’d dismissed Joe Root. England’s fortunes have risen and fallen on Root’s batting for a while now so when he went for 33 just after tea, there was a certain inevitability as to what happened next.
Brilliant though Root has been so far in this series, with the bat, there was no immunity of blame for him at England’s demise, and not just because he edged a ball from India’s Jasprit Bumrah that he might have left alone.
For such a calm batsman, Root too often allows emotion to cloud the judgements he makes as captain. I don’t know if England would have won chasing 200 but they’d have been more confident of doing so than hanging on for a draw — their eventual fate after Root and his bowlers lost the plot on the final morning.
Everything had been going swimmingly. England dismissed the dangerous Rishabh Pant and adhesive Ishant Sharma inside the first 40 minutes of play at Lord’s, which meant India’s lead was 182 with just two wickets required. All of England began to believe a home win likely.
India’s pair at the crease, Bumrah and Mohammed Shami, are not even renowned batsmen in their own families. Shami had made a fifty before (against England), but that is not much of a return from 53 Tests while Bumrah’s Test batting average was just two before this series. Yet it was Bumrah who proved England’s undoing, not through some wily strokeplay, but by stirring England’s collective ire after he’d pebble-dashed James Anderson on Saturday, his barrage of bouncers striking England’s No.11 batsman repeatedly.
The best cricket sides operate like a band of brothers but sometimes the all-for-one stuff can get overdone, as it was here. Instead of England’s pace bowlers doing what they had been, probing a good line and length to take advantage of cloud cover and an uneven pitch, they went short to target Bumrah’s head — successfully too, given he suffered two helmet strikes.
Playground hostilities took over. Words were exchanged, emotions boiled, and the whole thing escalated to the point where England’s bowlers (all save Sam Curran and Moeen Ali) were sucked in to avenging Anderson rather than win a Test match. Which is where Root should have stepped in. Captaincy is not a popularity contest, it is a dictatorship and Root should have ordered his men to cease their feud. Bowling persistent bouncers at tailenders is not unknown but only done when other means of dismissal have been exhausted. As Keith Fletcher, my old captain at Essex, used to remind the fast and nasties constantly: ‘If line and length is good enough for a No 3 batsmen, it’s good enough for nine, ten, jack.’
England have become so obsessed with data they appear to have forgotten the psychology of the game — which is what they ceded with their huffing hysterics. Far from disconcerting Bumrah and Shami, the short stuff made them more resolute while simultaneously causing Root and his men to take their eye off the prize. The end result was two ropey batsmen put on 89 runs which allowed India to declare with a pretty much unassailable lead of 271 — unthinkable 90 minutes earlier.
Root has previous when it comes to not keeping his emotions in check. His use of the Decision Review System, also requiring a cool head, has been poor this series. He seems to believe just because England need or deserve a wicket, some higher power controlling DRS is going to hand them one — which is wishful thinking.
Root has admitted he and his bowlers messed up on Monday morning, which is big of him, but that does not detract from the fact even a target of 200 may well have been beyond England so poor has been their batting, the skipper excepted.
On that basis, you feel changes are inevitable for the Headingley Test. But who and for whom (Dawid Malan perhaps)? It’s not as if there is any red-ball cricket, or indeed much county cricket, being played at present.
Of course an England win at Lord’s could well have stayed the axe, with justification, but the opportunity was missed, frittered away by a puerile settling of scores.
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