India dominated the first two and a half days of the opening Test in Hyderabad, then somehow contrived to throw it all away and slump to an embarrassing 28-run defeat. The course correction they embarked on culminated in victory in two and a half days in the final Test in Dharamsala, their stirring fightback reflected in the deserved 4-1 scoreline.
England might hold a different point of view, suggesting that 4-1 isn’t a true reflection of the fight they put up. They might point out that except in Dharamsala, and maybe to an extent in Visakhapatnam in the second Test, they were hardly outplayed. That, if anything, they were the ones calling the shots at the conclusion of the second day in the third and fourth matches. But Test matches are not won, and certainly not in India, by playing one, or even two, good days of cricket. Nowhere else is character tested more sternly, nowhere else is ability questioned more uncompromisingly, nowhere else do things unspool at such a frenetic pace as the days roll on.
England’s gung-ho optimism at the beginning of the series in their quest to become the first team to win a Test series in India since 2012-13 stemmed from their faith in their aggressive approach, and the conviction that they could beard the ferocious Indian lion in its own den by resorting to Bazball, a much-abused term whose definition is, at best, amorphous. Having studiedly ignored that label, Ben Stokes finally invoked the unspeakable word after his side slumped to an innings-and-64-run pounding in Dharamsala. “In my opinion, it’s wanting to be a better player,” the England captain crowed. If one goes strictly by that definition, Bazball was an utter and total failure in India.
In Hyderabad and at certain stages in Visakhapatnam, India tried to play in the English way. It made for depressing viewing. Teams of the past have forced the best in the business to change their style in India; to see Rohit Sharma’s side go in the opposite direction was unedifying though to their credit, Rohit and head coach Rahul Dravid nipped that potentially hazardous development in the bud. Sticking to what they know best, India brought England to their knees through orthodoxy and correctness, receiving a massive fillip from their army of young turks to whom no obstacle is insurmountable, no task impossible.
The eloquent Dravid spoke of how the inexperience in England’s spin resources was matched by the lack of Test exposure of India’s youthful batting group, pieced together in the absence of Virat Kohli (personal leave), KL Rahul (injured) and Shreyas Iyer (dropped). “Their experience was in the batting, our experience was in the bowling and we won those contests. Our experience and nous in those moments (when England threatened to run away with it in Rajkot and Ranchi) trumped their experience and that was a critical part of the series.”
India’s batting charge was led by Yashasvi Jaiswal, who amassed 712 astonishingly attractive runs; Shubman Gill and Rohit were also part of the 400-club, and including debutants Sarfaraz Khan, Devdutt Padikkal and Dhruv Jurel, they had seven batters who averaged more than 40. England’s leading scorer was Zak Crawley (407 runs, average 40.7). Three others topped 300 but no one else averaged more than 35.55. Joe Root didn’t spark to life until the last two Tests, Stokes had a series to forget with only 199 runs.
Contrast this with what the seasoned Indian bowling delivered – a series high 26 wickets for R Ashwin, 19 wickets apiece for Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav, who all missed one Test. The bowling strike-rate of this group ranged between 32.78 (Bumrah) and 46.26 (Jadeja). England’s most effective bowler, Shoaib Bashir, needed 59.7 deliveries for each of his 17 wickets. Clearly, like Dravid so articulately pointed out, India won both the battles – the one between the experienced hands as well as the one involving the relative newcomers.
For India, this outcome is an affirmation of their processes and systems at the grassroots and domestic levels. It’s an indication that succession legacies will not be painful and full of heartache. The young charges have shown skill and temperament, game awareness and supreme self-assuredness. Admittedly, their bigger challenges lie ahead but there is no reason to doubt whether they can meet them head-on.
For England, cocky bordering on the arrogant and simply refusing to own up their faults (at least in public), this should be a chastening eye-opener. In this series, they neither entertained nor won a lot, including hearts. They have gone 14 months without a series win, are eighth in the World Test Championship cycle. Surely, if this isn’t a wake-up call…
