We saw England bowl some very odd spells - to begin (or end!), they seem intent on bowling short to the tail. The tail is the least experienced batting of the team, so you would expect that they don’t have the technique to play good balls, so balls capable of getting batsmen like Gill, Pujara and Iyer should probably be enough to get them too. Instead, England insist on just hammering it in short consistently to the tail. I’ve even got a nice diagram to show this.
England bowled 100% of their deliveries more than 8m down the pitch (from stumps) - not even one yorker, or even just a delivery AT THE STUMPS.
No one thought it was a good idea to try hit the wickets, while the batsmen were, in reality, just bowlers with pads on!
While eventually, they do get the wickets, they leak so many runs in the process, that their batsmen struggle to make the extra. Obviously, extra runs to make don’t help a batting side.
I also want to focus on Root bowling to Pant.
Off-spinners bowling to left handers is generally seen as a good matchup, less so in Tests, but still a good matchup, as they spin the ball away. Root coming on before Leach was also a little play on Pant’s ego - try hit me, boy, before you hit our first spinner. It was also expected that Pant would play with his usual flamboyance against spinners and attack them - instead, every delivery even slightly outside off was left. Which as we can see, was nearly all of them.
He only really went for the balls close to him - everything else he didn’t even have a go. This poses the question: should he have gone after Joe Root more? He basically let a spinner just bowl balls and balls at him. It took time out of the game, but didn’t move the game forward and just clogged up an end, putting pressure on Pujara to score (if that’s even possible).
In hindsight, now England have won, perhaps it would have been a good thing if Pant tried to rotate the strike at least. India collapsed big time in their 2nd innings - 378 should have been enough, but India were not expecting such good batting conditions for 2 days, with sunshine, although the bowling was wayward and both sides of the wicket. India lost 92-6, with wickets mostly given away - Pujara cutting to point, Iyer falling short (literally!), Shardul justifying his FC batting average of 16.57, and Kohli…is arguably in need of some domestic games.
India took wickets either side of tea, getting the advantage, but some odd field placements and horrific bowling by Siraj and Thakur let Root and Bairstow settle in, before playing their shots. Even Bumrah went at an economy of 4.35, with the 1st and 2nd change bowlers, Siraj and Thakur, going at 6.53 and 5.9 respectively.
To emphasise the important of singles in this game, India bowled 15 maidens in this game, while England bowled 19. India were happy to let England tick over, which ultimately cost them the game - no pressure was built.
In conclusion, England can’t keep banging the ball in short, especially to teams with a better tail than Shami-Bumrah-Siraj. The off-spinner v left hander is a good matchup, but with the match situation, maybe Pant should have tried to at least rotate strike. England can now chase quite well in Tests - the aptly named “Bazball” is becoming more and more prominent, with Stokes even quoting Leach: “They may be better than us, but not braver”.
Be brave, England. Let’s see it.