Posts Tagged ‘Test Cricket’

First Test, Day Three, The Ashes: Determined Bell helps steady England recovery

Posted: July 12, 2013 by thecognitivenomad in Cricket, The Ashes 2013
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Chandrasekhar Jayaramakrishnan

You can carp over England’s performance over the first three days up to a certain point all you like, with a fair sense of justification around loose strokes and a couple of idea-devoid sessions on Day 2. But you can’t accuse them of at least not trying to salvage some morale through responsible batting during the second innings.

Ian Bell, as he’d shown over many an innings post his maturity, finished the day unbeaten on a well-paced 95 – an innings that tilted the scales towards England. He’s mastered the art of wearing down bowlers; waiting for the right occasion to unleash his aesthetic drives through the off-side. He is what the likes of Phil Hughes and Rohit Sharma should become – boys who entered the international scene with immense potential, waiting to grow in to men who can carry the burden of expectations on their shoulders moving forward.

Bell's gritty, unbeaten 95 help steady a ship that otherwise was ready to run off course

Bell’s gritty, unbeaten 95 help steady a ship that otherwise was ready to run off course

Bell’s style is placed on simple principles coupled with a style that pleases the eye. But what he lacked initially was a quality that he’s gained, and gained substantially well over the last three years. The boy became a man with a few match-saving, and winning, innings in South Africa – a fluent 140 followed by a persistent 78 against the likes of Steyn, Morkel and co.

A successful Ashes followed down under, before the perils of the turning ball in the subcontinent raised a few eyebrows over his technique under such conditions. But he’s recovered strong enough to pose as a fulcrum of the middle order at 5 – acting as the meat of the sandwich between the flamboyant, boisterous Pietersen and the exuberant, young Bairstow.

Bell, like Cook and Pietersen earlier, showed a lot of intent towards occupying the crease for as long as he could. So did Broad, who refused to walk after edging one to Clarke at slip off Agar, off a deflection courtesy Haddin’s gloves. Australia had no reviews left.

How Aleem Dar failed to notice that will remain an unsolved mystery. Broad’s deadpan expression following that was a classic. But the notion of walking rarely gets mentioned especially when these two teams meet. England will point to the Hot-Spot blunder that presented Trott his first golden duck in Test Cricket as a karmic equivalence. Clarke didn’t seem too pleased. But the game already has had its fair share of contentious decisions.

Haddin made a nuisance out of himself by dropping Bell in the very next over, a fairly difficult chance though. Australia desperately needed a wicket if their dreams weren’t to feel totally futile. They’d toiled hard to get Pietersen and Cook before lunch, after which Matt Prior threw away his wicket to a needless shot that matched his wicket-throwing first innings stroke.

Australia responded to the doggedness shown by Bell and Broad, but not with too much vigor. Agar got plenty of bounce, showed encouraging signs of proving his mettle as a bowler. It was a shame that his team had no reviews left when Broad smashed one off his edge to Clarke. At the other end, Bell was given plenty of opportunities to commit himself to the expansive drive – a temptation that he intelligently restricted, especially of the bowling of Shane Watson.

He played late, played his shots with soft hands to construct an aptly paced innings given the circumstances. England had plenty of time at their disposal, with an ardent need to keep the scoreboard ticking. Any run rate freeze would’ve exposed them to the risk of a collapse resembling their first innings domino. If a lead of 250 was their first milestone, they got there comfortably with Bell and Broad well stuck in.

The Australians were forced in to redrawing their contingency plans for chasing a score that appeared to cross 300. Not every innings can script a record breaking tenth wicket stand. England’s continued resistance crystallized the notion that they aren’t a weary shadow of the team that clinched the Ashes down under last year.

There was a sense of staleness about the Australian attack when things didn’t go their way. As Broad and Bell ticked on, Pattinson tried every trick in his young repository of skills to reverse the red cherry. His valiant attempts, though, didn’t yield a wicket.

The first session of Day 4 will decide the likely outcome of the first test. Many a skeptics fear of the game unlikely to run on to the fifth day can be buried to rest, unless a dramatic Australian collapse exhibits itself tomorrow. Or if they manage to chase down 300 odd with a series of Agar-ian innings.

Day 5, The Oval: England complete whitewash as Swann grabs six

Posted: August 22, 2011 by thecognitivenomad in Cricket, India in England 2011
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Chandrasekhar Jayarama Krishnan

Head of Cricket, The CouchExpert

22 August 2011

 

There is a growing sense that our best days as a Test Cricket Superpower are behind us, and that England, currently is in the driver’s seat to ride on this throne for the foreseeable future. A sense of anguish seems to dominate any conversation that runs around India’s future in Test Cricket – the consequence of a whitewash whose coffin was nailed at The Oval.

There is, of course, some truth to this concern. Even Real Madrid’s 5-0 loss to Barcelona last December wouldn’t have had enough quantity of remorse to outweigh that suffered by the Indians lately. If at all anything was common, it was that both the Los Galacticos and Indians succumbed to the presence of sheer class amongst their opponents, coupled with bad errors of judgment intrinsically.

England dominated the series with the aura of a historical superpower that has never been colonized. The script of the fourth test could’ve well been written before the first ball was bowled at the Kia Oval, but what was heartening to see from the Indians, for a change, was resistance of some sort. Dravid’s defiance had thrown seeds of hope in to the Indian dressing room, two of which managed to last through a session without having its wicket thrown away.

The media-frenzy of a Tendulkar milestone that dominated headlines preceding this series is likely to continue until it is reached

Tendulkar’s near-repeat of his World Cup Semi Final innings against Pakistan, one filled with numerous chances that the opposition failed to grasp hold of, and Mishra’s battling (and splendid) innings – one that had to have had the other ‘batsmen’ hang their heads in shame- saw India through their first session without losing a wicket. Mishra’s guts, and temperament, are now widely endorsed with a large section of the Indian public willing to forgive him for lack of ideas while bowling – only to tout him to contention for the number six slot as a batsman.

That it had to end this way for the Indians was a certainty. A curious selection towards the end of the series had depicted a thought, or even a belief, that the Indians were as adept in conference rooms, where selections were made, as their players had been on the green wickets of England. Indeed, the uncontrolled fall of morale, confidence and the exposure of weaknesses and inability overshadowed all imaginable pretenses – not least helped by the fall of seven wickets for a paltry twenty odd runs to bring this series to a close.

Some of India’s most exciting one-day players were victims of the English soil’s greenish vengeance. Less gullible but no less feeble were the bowlers who ran out of ideas at the rate at which gas-guzzling SUVs drink fuel. Predictable responses to events of such drastic inconvenience hovered around packed calendars and lack of preparation – but lack of application, barring Rahul Dravid, stood out among the key culprits. England played brilliantly well, no doubt, but was made to look even better by the hapless Indians at various instances during this series.

England’s progressive rise in performance of their players, with Swann completing the cycle with his dominant performance in the second innings of the final test, picking up six, pretty much summarizes their state of confidence. A few of the statistics from the recent past – backed by innings victories and large integers – plant a scary proposition to the rest of the world: they’re right on top, and there seems to be no roads that descend anywhere near the British Isles.

It may now appear ironic that Man of the Series Stuart Broad was a doubtful starter at Lords, owing to his unimpressive form leading up to the series

Broad’s consistent lengths throughout the series, ones that would have made even the best of the long-jumpers proud, and high scoring cameos with the bat earned him the Man of the Series award, one for which there existed many a contestant from the English dressing room. Dravid, from the other dressing room, was parsecs ahead of any other Indian in terms of achievements this series. That, in itself, is a reflection of how the series eventually panned out.

Most of the Indian players, subsequently, will have to bite the bullets once the post-mortem verdicts are out; not that most of these facts aren’t known anyway. Some of their ‘shorter-format’ skill sets have probed in and out like Somalian pirates in the Gulf of Aden. Apart from the self-inflicting damage that it has caused to most of them, more than anything else, it has left a billion sullen faces staring at this plight back home.

On the contrary, the Englishmen have found themselves a bed of roses to recline on – their tale to reach the top of the rankings, followed by a whitewash of the previously reigning champions, couldn’t have had a better script in the making. The quality of their quests henceforth will decide whether they build their fortresses across the globe in sand or stone. They have had a remarkable time stamping their intentions, but the real game of governing unconquered territories is about to begin this winter.