A Gary Ballance century was not enough to put England into a winning position in the 2nd Test at Lord’s in their four match series against India.
England managed to get the final wicket of India’s innings very early on, as was mentioned in our roundup of the First Day yesterday, but yet another poor performance from Alastair Cook and Sam Robson’s refusal to leave the ball alone caused England to slump to 31-2 long before lunch. Ian Bell and Gary Ballance dug in until lunch as England only managed to score 51 runs in one session. However, after lunch Ian Bell’s resistance was broken by some excellent bowling from Bhuvneshwar Kumar as England were left on 70-3.
A promising partnership between Ballance and Joe Root was cut short as Yorkshireman Root, who’d dug in himself whilst supporting the excellent innings of Ballance, was trapped in front LBW by Jadeja.
Moeen Ali and Ballance managed to put together an excellent partnership of 98 as Ali got to 32, playing an excellent supporting role as Ballance made his second Test century, but both Ali and Ballance fell just before the end of the day when all they needed to do was survive a few more overs.
Had England ended the day 219-4 then they would’ve been in a very promising position, but those two wickets at the end of the day have left the match firmly in the balance (no pun intended). India will feel that if they go into the third innings with any sort of lead and can bat well, the deteriorating green pitch; a bowler’s dream, will make it very hard for England to chase any sizable total.
So what was the difference between India and England’s bowling performances which meant that India could consistently take wickets? India bowled much fuller than England and actually aimed to hit those three wooden things behind the batsmen on occasion. One telling statistic is that in India’s first innings they were able to leave 44% of the deliveries in their first 25 overs; England, on the other hand, were only able to leave 26%.
Early on in an innings it is absolutely imperative that the bowlers put pressure on the batsmen. If you keep bowling short deliveries which swing away from the batsmen then if the batsmen get too tempted and play at the deliveries they will start to give away catches. However, if they have the patience to leave at those deliveries the bowlers will not get any wickets. If, on the other hand, you pitch the bowl up and look to hit the stumps more often than not, the batsmen are under much more pressure and will start to give away their wickets, particularly if they have the form that the likes of Alastair Cook and Ian Bell.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar is the stand-out example playing in this Test match. Kumar bowled plenty of pitched up, straight deliveries and he got four wickets for his efforts. He bowled beautifully all day and reaped the rewards. Kumar is not as quick as any of the England bowlers and doesn’t bother with any of the “enforcing” nonsense which was part of the reason why Stuart Broad lost all his form a few years ago.
As for the batting, the England batsmen must learn (or perhaps re-learn) when to leave the ball, when to play at it, when to defend it and when to go after it. Look at Sam Robson; he played at a bowl which he had to leave, edged the ball into the slips and was given a lifeline as the fielder dropped it. However, he didn’t learn his lesson and played at a bowl wide of the stumps and gave away his wicket, caught behind. The same happened to Alastair Cook; except he left at a bowl which only a One Day cricketer needed to play it and got out for yet another poor score.
England are not at all far away from a strong batting lineup. For sure, they are missing Kevin Pietersen, but all of England’s top six are strong batsmen who have played strong inning: Alastair Cook and Ian Bell have been at the very top of world Cricket but no longer have any form; whilst less experienced International players Sam Robson, Joe Root, Gary Ballance and Moeen Ali have all made centuries in the last few months. If Cook and Bell return to the form they’ve had in past series against, for example, Australia then the batsmen alongside them will not only have two players leading from the front but will be under much less pressure to succeed.
As for the bowlers, all that is needed is a spinner and perhaps some more stump-hungry bowling from the pacers. However, there doesn’t seem to be a full-time spinner in England’s ranks who can even get close to the brilliance of Graeme Swann. Simon Kerrigan is promising but first he must recover from his humiliation at the Oval last summer in the Ashes. There isn’t much of a short-term solution for this problem, though Moeen Ali has shown in this series that he can be very useful. However, England must actually trust Moeen and bowl not just when it’s as a last resort.
England are not as far off a return to the top of world Cricket as was previously thought; they must avoid being stubborn and sticking to their same old unsuccessful methods.
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