NPR

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 25, 2021 2:52 pm

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 25, 2021 2:44 pm Were you actually watching the coverage? They stayed in their crease the majority of the time, and neither Root nor (to a lesser extent) Leach were bowling accurately or with pace. It was bowling to end the game, not win it.

But hey, congrats to Rohit and Gill for knocking off a tiny total, thus totally discrediting the previous 3 innings or something.

You can have as many hissy sulks as you like. Comical because I didn't want India to win either. Changes nothing in regards England batted like cretins for the conditions. India's spinners being the real thing
altered nothing in that regard. Maybe the opposite i.e. all the more reason not to stay rooted to the crease.

As an aside, wonder if Eng would have rested Anderson for the last test if they knew this joke surface was waiting down the road.

Calculon wrote: ↑Thu Feb 25, 2021 4:05 pm Haven't really followed this match or tour but what's the reason for England going in with only one frontline spinner?

They can blame the pitch which deteriorated rapidly on day two and has served its purpose for India but made a joke of five-day Test cricket. But really they had their opportunities and let them slide, picking the wrong team to boot with four seamers playing in a game when 28 of 30 wickets fell to spin.

Two-day finishes are rare for a reason - there have been only six others in the last 75 years - and it took a mixture of fine bowling, deeply-flawed batting and a pitch unsuitable for long-form matches to add to that list.

When they won the toss on day one England were gifted the best batting conditions of the Test and reached 74 for two but were 112 all out; their techniques were not good enough when the pitch was playable.

England have now been dismissed five times in a row for under 200, only the third time that has happened since 1904, with 44 of those 50 wickets falling to spinners. Their state of mind can be summed up by the fact so many were beaten by straight balls. And how do the batsmen improve techniques after so many were beaten by straight balls

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 25, 2021 4:48 pm It's incredibly dense to go "why were they beaten by straight balls??!?!" as if it's such an abject failure of technique. Alastair Cook, one of the best players of spin there's been, was making the point that the straight ball was so lethal because you couldn't predict when it was going to spin, because the bounce was so variable, the speed off the pitch was so variable, and the ball was turning so much so often. It's a useless complaint that ignores the entire context of what was happening. Someone even got bowled by Ashwin bowling a stock ball that went through the surface and turned the other way!

Like sure, Crawley shouldn't have been in such bother against one that zipped on first ball, and Bairstow had a meltdown. But this pitch was an absolute disgrace.

taking an unassailable 2-1 series lead and so much of their opponents’ dignity that whatever time needed in the nets to overcome technical deficiencies should be doubled with a counsellor to address the mental scars such a chastening defeat will cause.

However grossly underprepared England might have been with an attack of just one front-line spinner, the harm done by a part-timer with a bowling average of 47 was to be inflicted ten-fold.

When it turns a great deal like it did in this match ask yourself how many of the 20 wickets fell to unplayable balls? Hardly any. Never mind tailenders. Of our top six in both innings, 10 of the 12 wickets fell to straight balls. You need a clear head and a good defence. You either go right forward and smother the ball.. We were taught to use our feet. Occasionally you have to go down the pitch. I say occasionally for a reason, so the bowler is not sure when you are coming. The thing about going down the pitch is you don’t have to hit it for four or six. You can block it with bat and pad together.

handyman wrote: ↑Fri Feb 26, 2021 6:27 am Will there be issues for India with regards to the pitch prepared?

Gumboot wrote: ↑Fri Feb 26, 2021 8:07 am

handyman wrote: ↑Fri Feb 26, 2021 6:27 am Will there be issues for India with regards to the pitch prepared?

The pitch was the issue, but there won't be any meaningful consequences because...India.

Everyone expects an Indian pitch to be spinner friendly on the last couple of days, but it's ridiculous when the last couple of days are also the first couple of days.

Gumboot wrote: ↑Fri Feb 26, 2021 8:07 am

handyman wrote: ↑Fri Feb 26, 2021 6:27 am Will there be issues for India with regards to the pitch prepared?

The pitch was the issue, but there won't be any meaningful consequences because...India.

Everyone expects an Indian pitch to be spinner friendly on the last couple of days, but it's ridiculous when the last couple of days are also the first couple of days.

The wonder of Patel is not what he does but how he does it. There is no discernible difference in his action between deliveries that skid on and those that turn away from right-handers. Patel’s low, round-arm release creates undercut on the ball. When the ball pitches, it will spin if it hits the seam, but skid on if the leather of the ball kisses the pitch.

Essentially the approach sacrifices drift - and the ability to beat batsmen in the air - for natural variation after the ball hits the pitch. Patel may not know what an individual delivery will do, but over the course of an over not every delivery will perform the same way.

Again and again, England batsmen were snared by deliveries that went straight on. Eight of Patel’s nine wickets against right-handers, out of a total match haul of 11, came with balls that did not turn. “The natural tendency for most right-handers would be for the bat to come down protecting off stump,” explains Mark Ramprakash, the former England batting coach. “Playing for a little turn means they have played outside the line.”

The third hallmark is pace. Patel’s average pace is 55mph, placing him on the quick side for a left-arm spinner; Nadeem only bowled at 52mph in the first Test. In the second Test, one delivery from Patel even reached 62mph. Such greater speed, as the Indian writer Vijaya Chaithanya Budati noted, inhibits batsmen from using their feet to Patel and hitting the ball on the full, before it has had a chance to turn - or, indeed, not turn.

There is a difference, however, between tough conditions and impossible ones. And if England really do want to be the best in the world, they are going to have to find a way. At present they have an Achilles heel which will cost them just about every time they come up against these conditions. And as we saw in Dhaka, in 2016, or Abu Dhabi, in 2012 (both occasions when their batsmen have been undone by the ball that skidded on as much as the one that turned), they are going to come up against these conditions.

But, somewhere along the way, we've lost a thing or two. And while the ability to defend the turning, spitting ball might seem arcane, there was a certain beauty - and yes, a certain entertainment - in it.

"The modern batsman seems to think you have to hit your way out of trouble," Amiss, who averaged 48.05 in Test cricket in Asia, told ESPNcricinfo. "We used to think you play your way out of trouble. This pitch was about as tough as any I've seen. So, as a batsman, you probably are going to need some luck. But yes, we did play on similar wickets. And yes, we did find a way to score runs on them. And how did Amiss succeed in such conditions? "I always looked to play forward," he said.

Like Amiss, Tolchard played for many years on uncovered wickets. Indeed, he recalls one match - in July 1966 - when he suffered a king pair in a day against Derek Underwood's left-arm spin on a surface which overnight rain had rendered treacherous. But he wasn't going to let the experience go to waste and, from then on, he utilised his quick feet to smoother such spin. "Lesson learned," Tolchard told ESPNcricinfo. "I vowed never to get caught at slip playing defensively again. So [from then], I swept, cut, or ran down the wicket to block it.

Fowler, the first England player to register a Test double-century in the country, did not sweep and did not come down the wicket. But he, too, found a way. "People talk about dominating a bowler as if that means hitting him for fours and sixes," Fowler said. "But you can also dominate them by seeing out seven maidens in a row. You earn the right to hit the bad balls by being able to defend the good ones. "You can see batsman now are thinking 'there's one with my name on it here' and they don't give themselves a chance to build an innings as a result. The game's got better in nearly every way. But I don't believe the bowlers are faster and I don't believe the batsmen have the defensive game they used to have.

I used the depth of the crease. I would look to play forward - I don't know what Zak Crawley was doing playing back to the one that bowled him

Woddy wrote: ↑Fri Feb 26, 2021 11:24 am I'm a fan of Test cricket encompassing all different types of pitches, to promote different styles of play and players and to test different techniques. And I don't believe that Test cricket should have to play towards a prescribed 5-day format. Low-scoring, two or three-day tests are fine, once in a while. Broadcasters and advertisers may lose out a bit, and perhaps journos/pundits covering them if on a daily rate (any a little bitter?), but encouraging variety is good for long-term interest in the game and thus, the longer-term advantage of even commercial backers of the sport.

England's batsmen's techniques were seriously exposed here. Alright, the pitch made the ball come on randomly (welcome to my world!) but that can be part of the game. Perhaps you do have to get to the pitch of the ball and take your chances on it bouncing hard rather than waiting to be crucified on the back foot. It might lead to a short game, but if part of a rare test, so what? Getting to the pitch with light hands has become an archaic skill, but was probably the only way to play certain bowlers in the earlier years of the game. Sydney Barnes would have loved this pitch but may not have done so well on some the modern roads [admittedly not so many of those in the last few years around the world].

This was an extreme pitch, and the issue is if similar ones are used too often. Ideally, most test matches should last at least 4 days but that does not mean that they all should. Hopefully the next one will give a fairer chance to batsmen.

For me the biggest issue in this match and the previous test, which has been overshadowed by England's collapses and discussion of the pitches, is the blatant inconsistency of the third umpire and home TV broadcasters. Not to look at, or even show after the event, stump-cam footage of stumping chances against India's batsmen (for example) was almost humourously one-eyed. That they did show innumerable angles on day 2, after having been put on the spot, actually made it worse as it showed they had all those angles all along. Not that that condones England's crowding of the on-field umpires. I hope Root gets censured for that, just as Kohli should have been previously.

Rinkals wrote: ↑Fri Feb 26, 2021 12:44 pm

Woddy wrote: ↑Fri Feb 26, 2021 11:24 am

I doubt Root will get so much as a slapped wrist.

I think the issue is not so much that the pitch deteriorates, but that it does so quickly on the morning of the first day, which makes the toss winning the toss really, really important because if you don't win the toss you are going to be batting last on a minefield.

Mahoney wrote: ↑Fri Feb 26, 2021 3:10 pm I watched most of the test match. The idea it was just the teams batting badly is ludicrous; from the start balls were turning square, then not turning at all, and there was substantial variable bounce for the spinners. It was quite obviously a nightmare to bat on so long as you had spinners at either end who could reliably put the ball in the right spot at a reasonable pace. It was much the same in the previous test.

Mahoney wrote: ↑Fri Feb 26, 2021 3:10 pm I watched most of the test match. The idea it was just the teams batting badly is ludicrous; from the start balls were turning square, then not turning at all, and there was substantial variable bounce for the spinners. It was quite obviously a nightmare to bat on so long as you had spinners at either end who could reliably put the ball in the right spot at a reasonable pace. It was much the same in the previous test.

Consequently the toss had nothing to do with the results - the pitches were largely the same for both teams throughout. England lost when they won the toss and lost when they lost the toss, and would have lost both had either toss gone the other way, because their spinners were either substantially worse than the Indian ones (2nd test) or were delayed ludicrously while the seamers bled critical runs (3rd test).

The pitches offered a fair contest between the teams and correctly showed India the better side, having much the better spin attack & a better batting lineup. What they didn't offer was a fair contest between bat and ball; only England's woeful spin bowling meant that the 2nd test went beyond the 2nd day. Had India played India on these two tracks both games would have been over in the 2nd day.

England's batsmen kept getting bowled by the straighter ball off the India spinners, with left-armer Axar finishing with match figures of 11-70 and off-spinner Ashwin 7-72.

Some balls were turning but, especially in the first innings of a Test, you have to assume the ball is not going to spin that sharply and you play for a non-turning ball.

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 04, 2021 10:47 am Disappointing to see so many batsmen getting out while using their feet.

Hal Jordan wrote: ↑Thu Mar 04, 2021 12:33 pm

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 04, 2021 10:47 am Disappointing to see so many batsmen getting out while using their feet.

Convention suggests using the bat.

Hal Jordan wrote: ↑Thu Mar 04, 2021 12:33 pm

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 04, 2021 10:47 am Disappointing to see so many batsmen getting out while using their feet.

Convention suggests using the bat.

Paddington Bear wrote: ↑Fri Mar 05, 2021 10:17 am Very disappointing hour. India put under no pressure whatsoever.

Comes back to the 'we should have played two spinners' argument - Bess started the rot after tea because he's not good enough. 'If I was England I would simply pick a second world class spinner' isn't viable.