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.

Nagpur, day four: England 161-3

The series is almost in England’s grasp. They need only to bat for another three hours or so on the last day to put the match out of India’s reach and guarantee a 2-1 win. India actually helped them a bit with one of the strangest first hours one will ever see to start the fourth day. I said on day three that India should try to build a lead and the other alternative was to hit out and get to parity as quickly as possible. Instead they decided to farm the strike and went at one an over for a time. It was neither getting enough runs to put England under pressure or giving them time to bowl and was only ended when MS Dhoni inexplicably declared four runs in arrears at drinks. India had essentially taken an hour out of a Test they needed to win.

Like day three, most of the excitement today came in the last hour, but there was some interest in the afternoon this time. England batted very slowly through the start of the day, determined to keep wickets in hand. Alastair Cook eventually fell and fell to a decision just as bad as the one which disposed of him in the first innings. Both were from Kumar Dharmasena who did make some good decisions in the match, but the number of utter howlers he has made will ensure it is a match he wants to forget. It would be over-dramatic to say that his errors have ruined the match, but they are just as bad for the game as the terrible pitch. It is not possible to properly construct innings when the umpire is giving random decisions and undermines the credibility of the game.

These problems would be strongly mitigated with DRS, but India refuse to use it and one of the reasons they refuse is that they thinks it does not show respect to the umpires. But apparently no one told the Indian players. Late in the day Jonathan Trott played at one away from his body and the Indians appealed for a catch behind. There was a noise, but Dharmasena gave it not out. The Indians response to this was simply disgraceful. They surrounded Trott and the umpire and Virat Kohli was particularly loud. It was very reminiscent of the antics of Ricky Ponting and Peter Siddle at the MCG in 2010. It was utterly unacceptable behaviour; Kohli should lose a fair bit of his match fee and Dhoni should not get off either. Having DRS would not necessarily prevent scenes like that one, the 2010/11 Ashes of course did have DRS and that was what sent Ponting into his rage, but it does completely undermine the BCCI’s point about respecting the umpires.

After this things started to get ugly. Ravichandran Ashwin made one of the worst Mankading threats to Trott one will see. I have no problem with Mnkading in principle; if the batsman is trying to steal a run the bowler should be able to stop him. But Trott was not trying to steal a run; he was actually following the law perfectly. He did not leave his ground until Ashwin had started his delivery stride. That is the law, as was subsequently pointed out to me the new playing conditions allow a Mankad up until the delivery swing, but Ashwin actually went through his entire delivery motion without releasing the ball before turning around to talk to have a few more words with Trott. The ball was long since dead by this point so it would have been an utterly futile endeavour either way. Ashwin gave an odd justification for this in the press conference; he said that India were upset that Trott had hit a mistake delivery from Jadeja for four earlier in the day. But this holds little to no water; Trott had hit his four a full session, 34 overs, before the threatened Mankad and at the time even the Indians were chuckling! If they were upset about it then they had an odd way of showing it.

One gets the impression that India were letting their frustrations show as the series started to get away from them. They are very close to losing a series on home soil for the first time since 2004 and they are justifiably upset about this. But they have only themselves to blame for their predicament and lashing out at the umpires and opposition is not at all acceptable.

Nagpur, day three: India 297-8

It’s not fair to say that one could have skipped the first five hours of today’s play and not missed anything, but it isn’t completely inaccurate either. MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli batted very well; they had clearly paid attention to how the pitch had played on the first two days and they both curbed their attacking instincts in favour of slow, gradual build up. It was exactly how they had to play and although England bowled well in the first session all they managed to do was keep India down to 59 runs in 32 overs. England caused brief problems at various points, but could not find the breakthrough until very late and largely because of the patience and discipline shown by India. It was impressive batting in any circumstance, but given how far India have been from showing anything like this kind of fight or application all series it was all the more remarkable.

England by no means bowled poorly for most of the day. Just as there were brief periods where the caused problems there were also some periods, mostly with the new ball, where they had trouble keeping India tied down. But by and large they did what they could; after it looked like the pitch was starting to do a bit last night there was no sign of any sort of life today. It was simply a slightly more emphatic version of what it was on the first day: slow and with nothing in it for either bowlers or batsmen. A reasonably interesting match has developed so far, but that is fortunate and this wicket is not good enough for Test cricket. A Test wicket must have something in it. England actually deserve a lot of credit for continuing to fight so hard even into the last hour. After bowling for five hours with no help and looking rather sore Jimmy Anderson bowled some unbelievable deliveries late in the day, one of which got him his fourth wicket of the innings. It was a fantastic effort.

I seem to be in the minority in thinking that Tim Bresnan also bowled well today. He was as tight as any of the other bowlers and looked threatening more than any of the other bowlers bar Anderson in the first two sessions. He got the ball to swing and troubled the batsmen particularly in a spell before tea in which he came close to an lbw twice and then just barely missed a caught and bowled. I don’t think he is the best choice in a three-seamer attack; as I said after the first Test against the West Indies I think he needed to spend more time with Yorkshire this summer and he has never looked as good as he did before his injury. But it was not ridiculous to have selected him for this Test and there is nothing to suggest that Graham Onions or Stuart Meaker would have done a better job on this pitch. Bresnan was not even England’s worst bowler today, that was Monty Panesar. Which is not to say that Panesar bowled poorly, he didn’t, but he was the only one to never look threatening. With all the tweets going around about Bresnan going 74.4 overs without a wicket it was mysteriously never mentioned that Panesar had just one wicket, a tail-ender, in his last 70.3 overs.

England would have hoped for most of the day that just getting one wicket would instigate a collapse. And this is exactly what happened, though the plan probably did not involve waiting until the last hour of play. It was far from an ideal circumstance for Ravindra Jadeja to make his debut and he never looked comfortable in his innings of twelve. But the more unexpected casualty was Dhoni. He was in the nineties when Kohli was out and the increased pressure and subsequent loss of Jadeja kept him from really scoring. He stayed in the nineties for over an hour and the pressure finally told when he tried for a single that wasn’t quite on and was run out. Even as an England supporter who has been quite harsh about the way Dhoni has led his side in the past I feel for him. He surrendered in the last Test but here he promoted himself and played a real captain’s innings to keep his side alive in the Test. He lost patience just a little bit too soon, however.

Overall this was still India’s day, but the four wickets before stumps mean that England are back on top in the match. But what India have at least done is kept the Test close. India still trail by 37 and although one could see them get a lead close to fifty if Ashwin bats well it is more likely that they will end up within about twenty runs of parity in one direction or the other. They should try to get as many as possible; I don’t think making England bat as soon as possible is really to their advantage as has been suggested. They are going to have to get the runs at some point and they might as well do it now before the pitch has a chance to break up (though it may not), whilst England’s bowlers are a bit tired and at a time when they can use those runs to apply pressure to England’s batsmen. Either way England are probably going to have to bat for about four sessions to secure the Test, but it will be easier to start that early tomorrow and doing so will give them a chance to still win the Test instead of just batting to save it.

What next for India?

The past few months have not been kind to India (though I’ve heard many of their fans wanted England to lose more than Pakistan, so they’ll have some consolation). It’s been clear for some time that they need to make changes and I think after their latest result they may finally do so.

They first, and relatively simple, changes are to personnel. They have some very illustrious batsmen, but they are nearing the end of their careers, if not there already. There are at least some questions to be asked about every one of the Indian top seven, though some more than others. Gautam Gambhir is one of the least well known of the Indian batmen, but he is in the eighth year of his career and averages 45. It’s certainly quite respectable, but he has not made a big score for some time now and he looked badly out of his depth in England and Australia. (He was hardly alone, of course.) He has not done very much to suggest that he be dropped, but nor has he stood out. He also has the problem common to Indian batsmen of impatience to score runs, and he does not leave balls outside his off stump well. I would probably keep him around for a bit longer, but only until the replacements are ready. With Virender Sehwag, however, I would get shot of him as soon as possible. At the very least I would never include him in a squad to play outside Asia. He has no technique and does not even come close to having the temperament for Test cricket. He is the very definition of a flat track bully, averaging 61 in Asia and a miserable 36 outside it. Worse, he is one of the most selfish players in the game. He could be one of the best batsmen in the game, but he refuses to adapt his game in difficult conditions and throws his wicket away when the team need him to perform. No where was this more apparent than in the fourth Test of this most recent series. India needed to bat for over a day to save the Test, but he kept throwing his bat at the ball. He added 62, but he runs were purely nominal. India needed a draw, and he refused to even try.

The openers, Sehwag in particular, have consistently put India in a spot of bother early in the innings, but the failing middle order is probably the most pressing concern. The three pillars of Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman have had, at best, mixed success in England and Australia, but they are all ageing. Dravid is the oddest case. He was a class apart in England, the lone aspect of resistance. In Australia, however, he has been all at sea. He has been horribly missing straight deliveries and all of a sudden he just doesn’t seem to be seeing the ball. For a batsman of his record, especially as recently as last summer it seems harsh to suggest that it will end his career, but he isn’t going to last forever. Tendulkar is probably only out of form by his lofty standards, but at the same time he seems to have lost his touch a bit. He is batting very aggressively and is certainly making starts but is not converting them. Most of his dismissals have been the result of good bowling, but they still tend to be predictable. He does not seem to treat good bowling spells with the respect he deserves. Despite what some may say, he is not god or even Bradman and at the moment he does not seem to realise that. He has some time left in him, but I suspect he his age means will get will get worse rather than better. Laxman is the worst off of the three. He is the only one who has been quite short of runs in both series. Unfortunately for him and for India his career does look like it’s over. He hasn’t had his touch for some time now, and even if he gets it back he is old enough that it is probably not worth waiting for. Of the three, I would drop Laxman immediately. Ideally he would be encouraged to retire, but however the official announcement goes he should not play in India’s next series. Dravid and Tendulkar are more tricky. Tendulkar’s fame is such that he will certainly never be dropped, but it’s unclear if he will have the wherewithal to retire soon. There is also the matter of the ‘100th’ century to consider; as silly as the notion is they still take it seriously. I think he should go soon, however. He still has the chance to go before he is embarrassed and it would improve his legacy if he does so. Dravid is the most interesting of the three. He may have a fatal flaw in his technique, but if there is one person that India should keep to tutor young players it is Dravid. He is the only one who seems to really care about the team and the only one who has been willing to try to dig in and fight when it is needed. None of the others have shown the same type of desire or application and India need their young players to follow Dravid’s lead as opposed to the rest of them. He might benefit from moving down the order, but certainly I would keep him around for as long as is feasible.

The rest of the players are less of a concern, though Dhoni is a poor captain and Adelaide shows that India have a perfectly good replacement for him as wicket-keeper. The problem for the bowlers is their demeanour. They can get early breakthroughs, but once a partnership starts to develop their heads go down and they seem to give up. At what point in the Sydney Test Australia were 37-3, but it wasn’t long after that India seemed to be bowling for the declaration! There is no clear way to fix that problem, though Duncan Fletcher should be able to help. (And if he can’t, he shouldn’t have the job.) A different captain may also help, though the only one with the right mentality is Dravid and he is not a long term solution. For a clear demonstration of the gap in motivation one needs to look no farther than the statements made by Dhoni and Sehwag about the 8-0 combined thrashing and the statements made by Andrew Strauss after England’s horror show in Abu Dhabi. India need more commitment.

India will host England for four Tests in November and if they play the same XI there as they did in Melbourne they will struggle again. In addition to bringing in younger players, they also must find a way to bet those players experience in alien conditions. Suresh Raina was dreadfully exposed against the short ball last summer, but Kohli showed in Australia that it is possible for them to adjust. A season playing county cricket would probably do them a lot of good, though the BCCI are very unlikely to allow them to do so. At the very least they need more ‘A’ tours to places like South Africa and England. Ideally in a year they will have no more than three of their current top seven still playing; they will still have a bedding in period, but they will at least be on the right track.