India 1-2 England review and player marks

Ten months ago I stayed awake through the night and listened in horror as England capitulated against Pakistan’s spinners in Abu Dhabi. The contrast between that and staying up through the night in this series could hardly have been more pronounced.

England played remarkable cricket to win this series. They had a horror start as India piled on the runs in Ahmedabad and then England’s displayed their same problems against spin. To come back from that massive hole and nine wicket defeat was a massive achievement. After that they batted much better (actually they batted much better starting in the second innings at Ahmedabad) but more importantly they outbowled India. England’s spinners comfortably outperformed their Indian counterparts in Mumbai and then James Anderson took over in Calcutta and Nagpur. England’s willingness to adapt, sometimes ruthlessly, was perhaps their most impressive aspect. Stuart Broad had a shocking two Tests and was dropped despite being the vice-captain. England knew they had someone better. The same thing happened with Samit Patel; he did not play terribly, but England decided they had better batsmen to fill that role and Joe Root performed brilliantly.

That came in sharp contrast to India, who now have a lot of questions to answer. India’s selection throughout the series was muddled, their tactics were questionable and their players badly underperformed. They seemed to have watched England struggle to play spin last winter and at Ahmedabad in the first innings and then simply refused to believe over the next Tests that England had improved in that regard. They seemed certain that they were going to win the series and never responded when England started to get he upper hand. Their minds also seemed out of it. They showed some fight, but very seldom at times that were really important. When their chances of winning the series started to slip away in the second innings at Calcutta their entire middle order surrendered and left it to Ashwin to spare the humiliation of an innings defeat. On the fourth evening at Nagpur they lashed out at the batsmen and umpires instead of trying to actually get wickets before coming out the next morning, still with an outside chance to make something of the series, and doing absolutely nothing for five hours until they could shake hands. MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli showed admirable fight and application in their first innings at Nagpur, but it served mostly to highlight the absence of that mentality for the rest of the series.

As important as the tactics and relative mentality of the two sides were, however, England in the end simply outplayed India. Alastair Cook led the way and could seemingly only be denied a ton by dodgy umpiring. But six of the seven batsmen to get more than one Test for England scored a fifty in the series and so did one of the two who got only one Test. Four of them scored a hundred at some point and as a team England scored more than four hundred in three of their five completed innings. India managed to do the same just one time in six innings. Part of that was down to the bowlers; Stuart Broad aside, England’s generally turned in very good performances. They either took wickets or kept the batsmen tied down. India simply never had the same kind of control. Ashwin had a shocking series, Zaheer Khan was so bad he was actually dropped. Ishant Sharma and Pragyan Ojha were the only ones to do much and even they sometimes looked helpless. India did not help themselves with selection though; picking Piyush Chawla for the last Test was mystifying and it was clear well before he was dropped that India had better bowlers than Khan.

England deserved their victory, their first in India for 28 years. My marks for the individual players are as follows (and unlike the Times I don’t think any of them played for Chelsea at the weekend):

England (88/150, average 5.87)
Alastair Cook* – 10
Perfect ten for the captain. To use the old cliché, he led from the front with the bat and would have finished with the highest average fro England were it not for Joe Root getting his runs with only one dismissal. He also led the side well; his tactics were good, his bowling changes were good and he did not let heads drop after the defeat in the first Test. Now if only he could get a coin toss right more often than once every six times…

Nick Compton – 7
It was a good, if unspectacular series for Compton. He batted solidly in the first three Tests and helped England lay an important platform in the first innings of the Mumbai and Calcutta Tests before getting the winning runs in style in the first and keeping his head on the last day of the second. His final average does not do him justice.

Jonathan Trott – 5
Trott had a bit of trouble at the start of the series; he was a little bit scratchy and got out to some good deliveries and some only mediocre deliveries. But he finished strongly with 87 in Calcutta and 143 in Nagpur to see England to Test and series winning scores. His fielding at slip followed a similar pattern; he put down a sitter in the first Test, but took some very good catches later in the series.

Kevin Pietersen – 8
Pietersen was successfully reintegrated into the England side and marked this by attempting to sweep a ball that went on to hit his off stump. But that was the nadir of the series for him; he went on to play the best constructed century I have seen from him on a very difficult wicket in Mumbai and followed up with a pair of solid fifties in Calcutta and Nagpur.

Ian Bell – 5
Much like Trott, Bell had a poor start to the series. He played a horrific shot in Ahmedabad and although he looked in decent touch throughout he got a bit careless at times to get out. He came through in the last Test, however, playing a vital unbeaten hundred to ensure England’s safety.

Joe Root – 8
Root looked like a Test batsman from the first ball of his debut in Nagpur. He came in with England in a bit of trouble and played very mature 73 to see England most of the way to a good total. He will certainly be on the plane to New Zealand.

Matt Prior† – 9
Prior was very solid throughout the series; he had few errors behind the stumps as usual and scored runs at an average of better than fifty. His biggest blemish was the terrible run out that precipitated England’s collapse in Mumbai.

Tim Bresnan – 1
Bresnan only played the first and last Tests and he had an absolute shocker in the first. He was not threatening and had no control. He was a lot better in the second Test, though could not pick up a wicket on the lifeless Nagpur pitch. He did cause problems and keep the scoring down, however, which was about all a bowler could do.

Graeme Swann – 8
Swann was statistically England’s best bowler in this series. He took a team best twenty wickets at a team best 24.75 average. He never had a single standout performance, but he was always a threat to pick up wickets and made the most of the Mumbai track in taking 8-113 in the match.

James Anderson – 9
Swann was statistically England’s best bowler, but Anderson was England’s actual best bowler. He could only keep the runs down in the first Test and had little to do in the second with the spinners bowling, but turned in exceptional performances in the last two Tests. With the pitches still not giving him any assistance he took six wickets in Calcutta and four in the only innings he bowled in Nagpur.

Monty Panesar – 8
Panesar was left out of England’s defeat at Ahmedabad, but recalled for the raging turner at Mumbai. He took his chance as well as eleven wickets in the match. His performances in Calcutta and Nagpur were significantly less impressive, but he was able to bowl long spells that kept the runs down and pressure on.

Jonny Bairstow – 0
Bairstow only played one Test, filling in for Bell at Mumbai, and contributed nine runs to England’s first innings total before playing a terrible shot and then failing to realise that he wasn’t actually out off it. It was a poor innings and he did not get to bat in the second. He’ll have to fight to get his number six spot back in New Zealand.

Samit Patel – 3
Patel played in the first three Tests as and never really did anything wrong. But he never managed to convert any starts of follow up the promise he showed in the warmup matches and was dropped for Joe Root.

Stuart Broad – 0
Broad was appointed vice-captain before the start of the series, but was troubled by a heel injury and bowled utterly appallingly in the first two Tests. He was then dropped for the fit-again Steven Finn and ultimately returned to England for treatment.

Steven Finn – 7
Finn bowled very well in the only Test he played. But two different injuries (the first of which had a recurrence) kept him out of most of the series. It was a blow to England who clearly missed his pace and bounce in the other three Tests.

India (46/150, average 3.07)
Gautam Gambhir – 6
Gambhir had a surprisingly good series for someone who came into it so out of form. He made a nice rearguard fifty as the rest of the side collapsed around him in Mumbai and similarly made a few runs before the implosion at Calcutta. But he never managed to do anything with those starts and also ran out two partners in Calcutta. He’s only a few overs of surprisingly effective rubbish bowling away from being India’s answer to Shane Watson.

Virender Sehwag – 3
Sehwag scored a blistering 117 on the first day of the series, then returned to his usual form making only 136 runs in the next five innings. A lot of this was down to his terrible technique, but he also was run out by Gambhir when he was looking dangerous in Calcutta.

Cheteshwar Pujara – 8
Started the series by looking like Rahul Dravid had in England. He scored an unbeaten double century at Ahmedabd before scoring a fighting 135 in Mumbai to get India to a respectable, if ultimately insufficient, score. He fell off from there (how could he not), but between incorrect decisions and being run out by his partner he still comes out of the series well.

Sachin Tendulkar – 1
Tendulkar’s top score in this series was the 76 made whilst trying to arrest a collapse in Calcutta. That much is quite respectable, but his next highest score in the series was 13 and he failed to get to double figures in six of his eight innings. He looks very much like a fading force and it his not clear what he gains by hanging on any longer.

Virat Kohli – 3
Kohli scored a fantastic century in Nagpur that rescued India from a position of considerable danger. It was a great innings in which he completely abandoned his usual game and just accumulated runs. But he waited until the last innings of the series to do that; in the first three Tests his top score was exactly twenty.

MS Dhoni*† – 1
Dhoni took some responsibility for his side in the last Test and fought hard for his 99. But his tactical deficiencies throughout the series were glaring and his selection muddled. As much as he fought in the last Test, he surrendered just as much in the third Test. He will be lucky to hang on to the captaincy.

Ravindra Jadeja – 1
Jadeja gets a very low score, but only got to bat once and was trapped by a vicious inswinger from Anderson. There’s really not enough there to judge for the long term. His one point comes from the wickets he picked up bowling.

Ravichandran Ashwin – 3
It’s very hard to judge Ashwin in this series. He was meant to be their main spin bowler and a decent bat down the order. But he was utterly innocuous with the ball and took his wickets at over fifty runs apiece. But he still managed to keep his batting average higher than his bowling one with some excellent rearguards. But those all came too late to help his country; he needed to perform with the ball and didn’t.

Piyush Chawla – 2
Chawla somehow took four wickets in England’s first innings despite bowling fairly poorly throughout. He was never threatening in the second innings and actually never should have been picked.

Ishant Sharma – 4
Sharma was India’s best bowler in the last Test and did okay in the third as well. But that was all relative and it was not a pair of Tests he will put on his highlight reel. The nadir was probably dropping an easy return chance from Alastair Cook, but his fielding overall was worse than lazy.

Pragyan Ojha – 6
Ojha was the only Indian bowler to really show up in the series and he finished level with Swann as the lead wicket taker in the series. Those wickets still came at a cost of over thirty apiece, however, as he was often made to toil during England’s long innings in the second and third Tests.

Yuvraj Singh – 1
Yuvraj Singh was apparently selected off a desire for a fairy-tale comeback story and a thought that he would be useful against Kevin Pietersen. But he has never really been Test quality and he showed that again in the first three Tests before being dropped for Nagpur.

Harbhajan Singh – 0
Selected as a third spinner for Mumbai, Harbhajan Singh took only the wickets of two tail-enders and scored 27 runs in what very well might turn out to be his last Test. Certainly he did nothing to suggest that he was still good enough to play Test cricket and did not even get a recall when India played four spinners at Nagpur.

Umaesh Yadav – 7
Yadav looked very good in the one Test in which he played. Unfortunately for India he then picked up an injury and missed the rest of the series. It was a story very similar to that of Steven Finn for England and like Finn India missed him quite a bit.

Zaheer Khan – 0
Khan is another who may very well have played his last Test; he managed just 4-213 in the first three Tests and three of those came in the first Test. For the most part England were happy to hit him around and happy to find him in the field as well; he was distinctly disinclined to pursue balls hit near him.

Mumbai Test: England win by ten wickets

The morning session of the fourth day of the Mumbai Test was not quite a formality; there was still a worry that India’s tail could hit out and give England a tricky target. But when Graeme Swann got Harbhajan Singh out in the second over of the day that possibility all but vanished and in fact India just managed to grind out another 25 runs over the course of about an hour before setting England 57 runs to win.

But the Test was really won long before the fourth day and it was just as a comprehensive win for England as the scoreline suggests and just as comprehensive a win as India recorded in the first Test. England beat India at their own game in this Test; their spinners comprehensively outbowled India’s spinners and their batsmen put last winter behind them and outdid their Indian counterparts to make a match-winning score in the first innings. That’s not to say it was a perfect victory for England by any means, however. There are still things to address if they want to avoid the tables turning again in Calcutta.

The first is that whilst the batsmen did manage to put up a good score it was off the performance of Cook and Pietersen almost exclusively. A lot of that is down to the pitch; it was never easy to bat on and only five of the 35 batsmen to come to the wicket for both sides even made it past thirty. It was that clear difficulty which made the innings of Cook and Pietersen so special. But not all of England’s wickets fell to good bowling and there is still some uncertainty about the middle order. Trott played very poorly for his duck and then Bairstow played a terrible shot to precipitate the controversy about his dismissal. England will at least reinforce the middle order with Ian Bell in the next Test and hopefully Nick Compton’s fluent thirty not out in the run chase will settle him down. He has never really been at fault in his dismissals, but he has been very nervy at times. If the Calcutta pitch is anything like the Mumbai one, however, England should not necessarily expect a lot from the middle order; they just need to make sure none of the batsmen give their wicket away and deny themselves a chance to get set.

Despite bowling India out for 142 in the second innings, England could look at the bowling as well. Swann and Panesar did pretty much all of the damage which was always going to be likely after it became clear how much the pitch was turning and indeed would turn later. But that was a slight problem in the first innings. England bowled well to restrict India to 119-5, but as the day wore on the batsmen settled in and the spinners started to look tired. England needed another option and although Anderson did manage to look threatening at times the only other seamer was Stuart Broad and he was a liability in this Test. He wasn’t threatening and he wasn’t economical and England really needed him to be at least one of those to give the spinners a break in the first innings and to give the batsmen a different look. If there had been a third seamer that would not have been as much of a problem, but as it was India recovered to 327 all out. If Broad plays in the Calcutta Test then it has to be as part of a five bowler attack, but I don’t think he will or should play at all. What I would have liked to see before the next Test is Broad play in the England Performance Programme match that started today to try to find some bowling rhythm and make sure that he is at full fitness. Steven Finn is playing in it and so is Graham Onions, however, so they might be in the mix for the next Test. Broad is a major asset to England at his best, but he’s been far from that in this series.

India have some questions ahead of Calcutta too, however. Not only did India win what looked like an important toss, but they played three spinners on a pitch that MS Dhoni had specifically asked to be a turner. To lose from there must be alarming. But the fact is that the only one of their spinners to consistently trouble England’s batsmen was Pragyan Ojha. Ravichandran Ashwin was poor for the second innings in succession; he did manage to get Cook which is o small feat with his current form, but he bowled far too many loose deliveries and the only other wicket he got in over 42 overs of effort was Monty Panesar. The decision to recall Harbhajan Singh was clearly an error. Singh was once a great bowler, but his career is coming to a close and this was at least one Test too many. The only wickets he picked up were Broad and Anderson late in England’s innings and generally looked ineffective. He won’t get many better pitches on which to bowl than this one and I don’t see how he can reasonably be picked again.

India’s top order had a fairly poor Test except for Cheteshwar Pujara who hit another century in the first innings. He has shown excellent temperament and technique and batted very well again for his runs. Gautam Gambhir also played a good lone hand in the second innings to possibly save his place in the XI and was unlucky not to carry his bat. But the rest of the top order had a match to forget. Sehwag, Tendulkar, Kohli and Yuvraj Singh made just 89 runs between their eight innings with a combination of poor shots and excellent bowling accounting for them. Kohli’s dismissals were both particularly bad and combined with his dismissal in the first Test might throw up some red flags for India. For Tendulkar this is a continuation of his poor form. Despite what some think, he isn’t immortal and he has now not made more than 27 in any of his last ten innings. I would be amazed if he does not play out the rest of this series, but either this one or the next should be his last. With Tendulkar undroppable, however, it’s Singh who might really be feeling the pressure having made nought and eight in this Test. It’s still a tough situation for the selectors, because Singh of course just made his incredible comeback from lung cancer and everyone wants to see him do well. But he was never really a Test-calibre player even before his illness, he had a batting average under 35 and a bowling average over 55, and that is showing again now. Unfortunately for India the first replacement would appear to be Suresh Raina and he would not only not appear to be an improvement, he actually has an average even worse than Singh’s.

Neither side need to make any sort of decision on their XI for the Calcutta Test this early of course, but I would be surprised to see either of them name the same bowling attack. England will be desperately hoping Finn is fit and India need to look at their other spinners to see if any of them can perform better than Harbhajan Singh. Other than that, I doubt either will change their batting apart from the return of Ian Bell to the England side. Both sides probably should look hard at their number six, however.

Mumbai Test, day two: England 178-2

The second day of the Mumbai Test was England’s day and it is one of the more important single days of cricket they have won all year. After they let a good position get away yesterday they fought through a frustrating morning to bowl India out for 327 and then proceeded to bat very well and sensibly on a pitch that was clearly still tricky to set themselves up very nicely for tomorrow.

England’s hero with the ball today was Graeme Swann. He took three wickets in the morning and although two of them were tail-enders he also got the important wicket of Cheteshwar Pujara. Pujara had by then batted unbeaten for over a thousand minutes in the series before Swann beat him in the flight and Prior completed the stumping. Monty Panesar did complete five wicket haul by trapping Ravichandran Ashwin as well and finished with 5-129. It was an excellent effort from him on his return to the side. It was a decent morning overall, but it did take a lot longer to finish off India than England would have liked and 327 was considerably more than England would have liked to concede, especially after having India 119-6 yesterday.

The important question was always going to be how England batted though. The pitch did not look as spicy as it had on the first day, but that was no guarantee that England would not fall to pieces of course. But England mostly batted very well today. Alastair Cook simply looks unstoppable at the moment and not only was he generally calm and assured, but he also took the attack to the Indians a bit. He hit a lofted six over long on (the eighth six of his Test career) against one of the spinners and was executing the sweep shot very well. Nick Compton also batted well alongside him, but occasionally got a bit stuck and finally nicked a good delivery to slip. There wasn’t much he could do about it, but that was not the case for Jonathan Trott. He stayed back to a full-length delivery and was trapped utterly plumb in front of middle stump for a duck.

The main attention will probably be given to Kevin Pietersen though. He played one of the best innings I have seen from him after coming in at a tricky time a few minutes before tea with the score 68-2. Unlike in the last Test and unlike what we have seen so many times from Pietersen he did not go after every ball and try to impose himself on the bowlers. Instead he played positively and brought his solid strokeplay to bear whilst not taking insane risks. It was essentially exactly how one would want an attacking batsman to play; he kept the run rate up, but never looked in danger of throwing his wicket away.

There were some very nervy moments for all the batsmen and it is still a spicy pitch. Cook and Pietersen navigated it pretty well, though each had some luck with balls rearing up and one lbw appeal turned down that would have been overturned had DRS been in play. So far on the first two days the morning has been the best time to bowl with seven of the twelve wickets falling before lunch, so with England still behind by 149 it is important that Cook and Pietersen get themselves back in tomorrow and bat for most of the session. With an uncertain five and six in next one could very easily envision England losing four wickets in the morning session tomorrow and falling behind in the match again. It will also be an important session for Cook who needs just 13 more runs to go level with Boycott, Hammond and Cowdrey for the most Test tons by an Englishman.

Mumbai, day one: India 266-6

By the standards of Ahmedabad, England started much better in the Mumbai Test. The problem, however, is that Ahmedabad was so poor that even this improvement was not enough to be on top. India were 119-5 at one point in the day before a sixth wicket stand of fifty and an unbeaten seventh wicket stand of 97 wrested the initiative back. Cheteshwar Pujara scored another brilliant hundred and is still not out for the series. It really is much like Rahul Dravid batted in England two summers ago and England need to come up with a plan to counter him. But it is the runs of his partners that are far more alarming. On another day those runs might be only an irritation, but this looks like a low-scoring wicket and those runs might be very important. There is bounce and turn and it looks like it will only get worse as the match go on. It is a bit hard to judge as the conditions are so unusual, but it looks like three hundred is a good first innings score. Certainly with England having to bat last they will have wanted a handy first innings lead and the odds of that have dropped sharply and India are fairly comfortably on top after the first day.

England did play a second spinner, Monty Panesar, in place of Tim Bresnan which was not surprising. They did not pick a third seamer, however, choosing instead to stick with Samit Patel. I said in my preview that they should only do that if the pitch was going to turn from the first ball and to be fair it did. Panesar took four wickets in the day and two in the first session, though one was to the predictable poor shot from Virender Sehwag. But it quickly looked like England were a seamer light anyway because Stuart Broad had a terrible day. One of the advantages of playing five bowlers is that one of them can have a terrible day and the attack can adapt around this, but with only four bowlers and only one seamer England started to look badly lacking by the time the day ended. Panesar shared the second new ball and was not effective with it and Anderson bowled well, but the attack just looked tired by the end of the day.

This will increase the pressure on Broad’s place for the third Test. He has been under par for a few months, but today was truly terrible. Anderson kept it tight and looked threatening, but Broad did neither. Not only did he never really look like taking a wicket, he went at five an over as well and really let India take the initiative late in the day. There is still an innings and a half for him to bowl, of course, but one has to think that at this point he is bowling for his place in the side. If Steven Finn is fit for the third Test and England only play two seamers it is hard to see how Broad can play at all. Even if Finn isn’t fit or England do play three seamers Broad still probably has to improve in the rest of the Test to stay in the side. We all know how talented he is both with the bat and the ball and it is hard to drop him because a magic spell might always be just around the corner. But England can’t keep picking him in hope forever and if he can’t bowl better than this then England need to give someone else a chance.

The obvious thing England need tomorrow is an early wicket. Just getting one, especially Pujara, would expose a proper tail-ender. That is no guarantee of anything as we have already seen, but it will give England a chance of keeping the score reasonable. But after that they have to find someone to play an innings to match Pujara. The pressure will be on to get not only a decent score, but actually a big one on a pitch on which it looks tricky to bat. They might take some hope from the fact that it seemed to flatten out in the evening session, but there is every chance that it is merely an effect of the two batsmen playing well. The goal is still just about within reach, but the bowlers need to finish the innings off and then the batsmen need to follow Pujara’s lead and bat sensibly.

Ahmedabad day two: England 41-3

The second day of the India v England series could have actually been worse for England. They did not get the early wickets they wanted and in fact did not get any wickets in the morning session at all. But after that they bowled a bit better and got a lot luckier in the afternoon and first part of the evening session to get four wickets. India declared on ‘only’ 521-8. That’s still a big score, of course, but there have been more than one time in this match in which India looked like they could comfortably get to six hundred if they so chose. But England were lucky to even restrict them that much. Yesterday Graeme Swann undid Virat Kohli with a brilliant delivery and England did induce a few chances that went down. Today Yuvraj Singh contrived to get himself out to a full toss from Patel, MS Dhoni gloved a sweep onto his stumps and Ravi Ashwin edged a wide long-hop from Kevin Pietersen behind. If one wanted to really give England credit then one could say that the Singh wicket was the product of choking off the runs before that, but that would be very generous. The only wicket England really took was that of Zaheer Khan and that hardly counts.

England never did get Cheteshwar Pujara out either. He played a fantastically composed innings for 206* and looked not only like a proper Test player, but a like-for-like replacement for Rahul Dravid at number three. It is certainly very good news for India as he looked like he would be able to play even outside the subcontinent. What will really annoy England though is that their misjudgement/drop yesterday ended up costing 198 runs. Pujara was one of only three batsmen to go past fifty runs in India’s first innings and although that was mostly due to careless batting England still should look back and think that India could have been closer to 323-9. Obviously everything else would not have gone exactly the same, but I think it is still illustrative of how the fielding has to improve.

Of course as much as England would have liked the bowling to have done better the real question was always going to be the batting and that got off to a poor start. Alastair Cook and Nick Compton looked okay against the spinners for a while, but there was quite a bit of turn and bounce and eventually one got through Compton. He left a bit of a gate which should not have happened, but mostly it was a good ball and he had played fairly well up until then. It was disappointing, but far from a disaster. But then England sent in Jimmy Anderson as a nightwatchman. This has been their policy, but it is much like their dogged refusal to play five bowlers: questionable, but so well established it seems pointless to argue. Against two spinners getting turn Anderson lasted about as long as one would expect a number eleven to last. Trott had to rush in to bat anyway, was out quickly and by the time it was all over it was a disaster.

It was certainly an inauspicious start to England’s batting on the subcontinent and England are now in a spot of bother in the Test. But there are some positives. Losing wickets late in a day is no guarantee of how things will go afterward; it happens all the time outside of the subcontinent too. One of the wickets was also the nightwatchman, so England are effectively still 39-2. It’s still not good, far from it, but nor is it as bad. And England do still have plenty of batting to come. Cook is still there having fought through the mini-session and Ian Bell and Matt Prior are still to bat. I would not rely on them, but there is also Kevin Pietersen at the crease and Samit Patel is in form.

Five hundred and twenty-one is still a long way off, but the follow-on total of 322 is much closer. I would not say that I am confident that England will get there, but they cannot be ruled out on the evidence of only 18 overs just before stumps. Avoiding the follow-on is only the first step and if England fail to do so I think they will almost certainly lose. But if India do have to bat again then they will not have a lot of time to force a victory. It’s a bit far in the future; India are still strong favourites and England have to just focus on getting a good score. But they still have a chance to get a draw out of this match.