Team India under Virat Kohli’s captaincy is capable and equipped to scale new heights and most importantly their attitude and approach to each game makes them stand apart. One rather bemusing aspect of this team’s rapid rise to world domination in Tests in recent times is the fact that they need to be constantly pushed to the corner for them to bounce back strongly; something thats not an ideal situation to find yourselves in as a team especially overseas.
India struggle, ‘The After Glow Effect’ as a Test Team in recent times
The resounding, ruthless nature of India’s win at The Kia Oval isn’t something new for this team. In 2020-2021 itself this phenomena called ‘The After Glow Effect’ has impacted Kohli’s men. The ability to back up a fantastic series win or a win with a convincing follow up performance.
They get bundled out for an embarrassing 36 runs at the Adelaide Oval. With Virat Kohli flying home, it looked done & dusted but under Ajinkya Rahane’s captaincy, India bounce back and how!
Beating Australia in their home conditions and breaching the fortress ‘Gabba’ will remain one of India’s finest achievements in their Test history; considering they were playing with a second or third best team owing to the number of injuries in their camp.
Before R Ashwin & Axar Patel made England’s batting unit look like school kids, India failed to back up their outstanding series win in Australia when they landed up at The Chepauk. Joe Root was magnificent as he went to score a stroke filled 217 and that floored India.
But then India bounced back and trounced England, thereby winning the series 3-1 and also almost making the first game look it was from another series altogether!
So the question everyone would be asking is: After the glorious of a win at The Lord’s, India slumped to a worrying low at The Leeds only to come back harder & stronger at The Oval. Which India is going to turn up in the series decider? Can they include more consistency in their artillery? Well only time will tell!
Small tactical moments or strategies right through the game cost England dearly
One among many reasons why experts, fans of this beautiful game & current and former players are advocating the beauty of Test Cricket is the fact that the game has a constant ebb & flow and small tactical glitches could cause you the game; unlike ODIs, T20Is or The Hundred where its less likely to happen.
I would like to highlight some instances where England lost the plot in the fourth Test allowing India to go 2-1 up in the series:
1. .On a very placid, flat deck in overcast conditions on Day One, Joe Root put India in to bat & had the visitors reeling at 127-7. Rather than trying to stick to their basics, they spread the field when ‘Lord’ Shardul Thakur unleashed some fabulous shots on his way to a scintillating 31 ball fifty.
Instead of attacking the other tail-enders and ensuring the total stays below 150 or so, England lost the plot tactically as they allowed easy singles for the others and Thakur carried on his majestic manner. He was allowed to largely as fields set were extremely defensive and the bowlers all of a sudden looked flat and tired.
2. After you bowl out India for 191(maybe 30-40 more than what they should have scored), it’s imperative for you to put up a score in excess of 300 to shut the door on the opposition. Yet again England gave away some soft dismissals and their middle order couldn’t support someone like Ollie Pope who was looking extremely fluent and confident.
The middle & lower order should have ensured India stay on the park longer, tire their bowlers and fielders in the process.
But with everyone getting cute 20s & 30s and then throwing it away, we had a lead of only 99 runs which was not going to play in India’s mind. What followed from the likes of Rohit Sharma, Pujara, Virat Kohli and again Shardul Thakur was fantastic!
3. And finally, with them being on 88-0 overnight requiring 291 runs on Day Five with all ten wickets intact, England just didn’t show enough urgency to go for the chase. India’s bowlers were quick to understand that a first session where England don’t score much is exactly what could help them capitalize on later.
And thats what happened. The scoreboard didn’t move much in the first session of Day Five; the pressure of not pushing the scoring as expected was visible in the manner in which their openers went about the chase, especially Haseeb Hameed who gobbled up way too many deliveries on such a benign surface.
It’s going to be extremely tough for England to bounce back in this series
A lot of what happens in the middle in Test Cricket is in the mind. The mental side of things have left England scarred after a very familiar batting collapse on Day Five masterfully executed by Jasprit Bumrah & Shardul Thakur.
Yes, on hindsight it could be little naive to proclaim that getting the openers would mean India would go on to win the game. But I strongly felt if India could get the openers out, the kind of pressure they were able to constantly induce; it was about time before the likes of Dawid Malan, Jonny Bairstow, Moen Ali, Ollie Pope and even Joe Root.
It became even more clear after that truly special spell from ‘Boom Boom’ Bumrah where he castled the stumps of Pope and Bairstrow. England looked rattled, listless after that spell, such was the impact. They gave up trying to go for an achievable chase way too early.
The quality of this team under Kohli’s captaincy is these players keep coming at you, hard. After Bumrah did the damage, Thakur chipped with couple of wickets including the crucial scalp of Joe Root and Umesh Yadav also later came to the party.
So, yes England can & will make personnel changes by getting in Jos Buttler and Mark Wood into this side. I wont be surprised if they pick Jack Leach in this team to throw a new challenge to this Indian batting lineup whose fragility hasn’t come down too much, it’s just that as a team they functioned better than England to go 2-1 up.
The most important question to be asked from this English side is can they shrug off a disappointing game at the Kia Oval and start afresh? If they need extra motivation to put one good foot forward, then it would be that if they do well as an unit in the fifth Test they can square the series 2-2 and retain or hold the Pataudi trophy.
With lot of tired legs, familiar problems plaguing their Test team its going to take a lot to come back into this series. But they can take some solace from the fact that India's middle order is far from settled, there are lot of questions on Ajinkya Rahane's spot in the side, to the overall batting weighing or depending far too much on the top three batters.
Certainly it's going to be an exciting & thrilling end to this Test series post which T20s take center stage; resumption of IPL 2021 & then the big tournament: ICC World T20!
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