India vs England: Jaiswal, spinners lead the way as 'Bazball' gets a reality check on Day 1 in Hyderabad

India vs England: Jaiswal, spinners lead the way as 'Bazball' gets a reality check on Day 1 in Hyderabad

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Jan 26, 2024 - 12:31
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India vs England: Jaiswal, spinners lead the way as 'Bazball' gets a reality check on Day 1 in Hyderabad
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The opening day of the first Test between India and England in Hyderabad didn’t quite pan out the way the visiting team would have hoped.

The Ben Stokes-led side had arrived in Hyderabad from Abu Dhabi hoping to give the Indian team the toughest challenge that they’ve faced in recent years. Additionally, the immense success resulting from their innovative ‘Bazball’ approach to Test cricket further contributed to the hype around the Englishmen as a world-conquering team that could perhaps pull off a repeat of their emphatic 2012-13 victory over the Indians.

If the events of the opening day of the marquee five-Test series for the Anthony D’Mello Trophy are anything to go by, conquering India remains a difficult proposition for any team, ‘Bazball’ or not. Sure it’s only Day 1 of the first match of a five-Test series that is set to go on till March. But the manner with which the Indians performed, bundling England out for 246 and ending the way on 119/1, certainly suggests Stokes and Co are in for quite the bumpy ride in this series, even if they end up pulling off what will be termed an upset victory.

Indian spinners halt the ‘Bazball’ charge

It wasn’t the case throughout the day though. Openers Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett got their side off to an excellent start with a 55-run opening stand and senior batters Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow later combined for an excellent 61-run stand that had the visitors staring at a sizeable first innings total.

Pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah started off with a tidy first over but Crawley had made his intentions crystal clear by dispatching Bumrah’s new-ball partner Mohammed Siraj for back-to-back boundaries off the local lad’s first deliveries of the day. Duckett would give Bumrah a similar treatment in the following over to give a clear indication of the fact that they were here to attack.

The real challenge for the Englishmen, however, lay in facing the Indian spinners in their own backyard, the challenge of which is vastly different from what they had experienced against Pakistan in Pakistan in late 2022. Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin had been introduced in the ninth and the 10th overs respectively, and it was only a matter of time before one of them took advantage of the English batters’ T20-like approach.

Ashwin broke the opening partnership by trapping Duckett leg-before and would later induce a chipped drive off Crawley straight to Siraj at mid off while Jadeja induced an outside edge off No 3 batter Ollie Pope to have him caught at slip.

India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin celebrates after dismissing England opener Ben Duckett. Sportzpics

Bairstow would then assume the role of the aggressor in his stand with Root, playing a couple of neat cuts off Jadeja for consecutive boundaries early in his innings. Root, who has been described by some as a key to England’s hopes of conquering the Indians in their own backyard, tried his hand at sweeping, and occasionally reverse-sweeping, against the spinners but ended up looking scratchy for the most part of the innings.

Both set batters would depart on the other side of the lunch interval — Bairstow getting cleaned up by a ripper from Axar Patel that certainly was the delivery of the day and Root getting a thick top-edge off an attempted of Jadeja to depart for a 60-ball 29 that contained just one boundary. The slide continued thereafter as Ben Foakes and Rehan Ahmed departed in quick succession, leaving the visitors tottering at 155/7 with the prospect of crossing 200 suddenly looking difficult.

That they finally managed to get within touching distance of 250 was largely down to a superb captain’s knock from Ben Stokes, who not only absorbed all the pressure that had been building on them with their mini-collapse after lunch, but managed to shift gears in style to take the fight back to the marauding hosts. Stokes was batting on just 17 off 52 deliveries, and would end up plundering 53 off his next 36 that included six fours and three sixes. A total of 246 might not appear a daunting score for the Indians to eclipse, but gave the English attack some cushion.

Yashasvi responds with ‘Jaisball’

As has been a tradition for the visiting Englishmen and the British press back home, discussions surrounding the pitch somehow tends to make its way into the mainstream every time England struggle to collect runs in Indian conditions and end up getting outplayed.

The wicket at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, however, couldn’t be further from a typical raging turner in this part of the world — rather the carry that seamers such as Bumrah was able to get, with the ball occasionally thudding onto wicketkeeper Srikar Bharat’s gloves suggested this was every bit a good wicket.

And Indian opener Yashasvi Jaiswal would further highlight the fact that this pitch had a lot of runs in store for the batter by producing a scintillating 76 not out off just 70 deliveries, helping India outshine England not just in terms of runs collected at a comparable stage by the manner and pace at which they had been collected.

Jaiswal, after all, dispatched England’s lone frontline pacer Mark Wood for a boundary off the very first delivery of the Indian innings. He would then greet debuting left-arm spinner Tom Hartley with a couple of slog-sweeps, both of which went for maximums. Jaiswal had already collected 18 off just 12 deliveries before skipper Rohit Sharma had even faced a delivery. With 35 runs coming in the first four overs, 27 of those off Jaiswal’s bat, it was amply clear who was in charge at the centre.

Jaiswal, who has had a meteoric rise since making his international debut in the tour of West Indies last year, would not only put the Indians in the driver’s seat with his fearless display, his approach would even give Rohit the license to take the attack to the opposition, with the Indian skipper three fours before perishing off a needless shot off Jack Leach, the seniormost member of the English spin department.

” He’s literally not put a foot wrong. He’s walked into Test cricket, he’s taken it like a fish to water. His carefree approach is enabling him to play some wonderful shots. I am quite enjoying it. I get a feeling sometimes when he’s batting, I am seeing Rishabh Pant there,” is how Ashwin, the pick of the bowlers on Day 1, would describe Jaiswal’s display with the bat after stumps.

The vast gulf in quality between the two spin attacks was amply made clear on the opening day; while each of Ashwin, Jadeja and Axar were among the wickets with Jadeja the most expensive of the lot at 4.88, only Leach was able to keep the Indian batters quiet with a tidy line while Hartley and leg-spinner Rehan Ahmed went at over seven-an-over — the former conceding 63 runs in nine overs in what has been a trial-by-fire for him on his first day as an Test cricketer.

Jaiswal will be eyeing the three-figure mark on Friday that will be made all the more special by the fact that it will be his first Test century in front of his home crowd. The momentum is currently with the Indian team after their superior display on Day 1 and they will be hoping to mount a total that proves too steep for Stokes and company, even if they have fought back from some of the most hopeless situations in the past.

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