India’s besieged leader is discovering how much scrutiny there is of every move made by every captain who goes up against Bazball
Alagappan Muthu01-Feb-20241:27
Manjrekar on the lack of runs from Gill and Iyer
It cannot be a pleasant experience, going up against Bazball.Pat Cummins was essentially eviscerated when he deployed a deep point in the first over of the Ashes in 2023.”I must admit I’m not a huge fan,” Ricky Ponting said.”It feels a bit un-Australian,” Alastair Cook said.”They have been the first to blink,” Eoin Morgan said.At times, it feels like there is more judgment lashed out in the course of a Bazball Test than in a whole season of Real Housewives.India are the ones being picked apart right now, in a way that they really haven’t been for more than a decade of playing on their own turf. The weight of all that history is falling on Rohit Sharma’s shoulders. He has now lost as many Tests at home as his predecessor, except his ledger says seven matches in charge. Virat Kohli’s says 31.
****
Jasprit Bumrah is getting serious reverse-swing.When he takes out Ben Duckett, India are asked to huddle up by their captain. A few moments previously they’d seen the big screen show that they’d made a mistake not going for DRS. Now it has been rectified. The batter who had been reprieved is gone. But Rohit wants to make sure his team seizes the opportunity. He refocuses them. The front of his trousers is stained red. He’s been the one taking care of the ball, keeping one side rough and the other shiny.Rohit Sharma got a lot right in Hyderabad, but the result amplified everything he got wrong•Associated PressAfter looking rather docile for 18 overs, India pick up two wickets in 2.1. It is their most electrifying passage of play and Rohit is a big part of it.He puts a lot of thought into his decisions. He keeps the field up to start the Test match and only after a few boundaries start flying does he ask for more cover. He tries to curb the threat of the sweep and reverse-sweep with in-out fields, having a man catching for the top edge and a man sweeping to stop the boundaries. He tries to enhance the threat of his two left-arm spinners and their natural variation by deploying them at the press box end, because the ball is keeping low from there. But he misses some stuff too.
****
R Ashwin is in the middle of a lovely spell. He bowls a maiden to Ben Stokes, working him around the crease by varying his flight. The over – the 31st – ends with a generously tossed-up ball that is defended confidently. The next one begins in similar fashion, except this ball dips on the left-hander, rags past his outside edge and nearly has him out stumped. England are still trailing by 36 runs. Stokes falls in the course of this unrelenting examination.In this six-over spell, Ashwin bowls 27 dots, concedes 10 runs off the bat, and produces a false shot once every 3.14 deliveries. Rohit takes him out of the attack.Perhaps he reasons that with two right-handers now at the crease – Ollie Pope and Ben Foakes – his left-arm spinners might have a better chance of pressing the advantage. Except that isn’t how it turns out.The tea break comes and goes and Rohit still doesn’t turn to the bowlers who have, thus far, looked the most likely to take a wicket – Ashwin and Bumrah. It brings back memories of the Boxing Day Test in Centurion, where on the second day he had opted for Shardul Thakur and Prasidh Krishna to start proceedings after lunch and they gave away 42 runs in eight overs.
****
There is a line between being bold and being rash and Stokes somehow keeps moving it for England. He keeps faith in Tom Hartley, sinking overs into him, even when he’s being hit around the park, because he is going to have to bowl again and he isn’t going to get better hidden away in the outfield.Zak Crawley got the same unflinching support and he repaid it with a phenomenal 189 in the Ashes. There’s pride in Stokes’ voice when he discusses his openers now. A smile tugs at his lips almost as if he’s picturing it all in his head. “Balls that Zak plays on the front foot, Duckett plays on the back foot. So it’s very tough, I think, for bowlers to settle into a rhythm and settle into a line or length against those two.”Nearly every punt Ben Stokes took in Hyderabad came off•Associated PressIts blue-sky thinking. And it keeps coming off. Ahead of this tour, Stokes looked at one of England’s most prolific run-getters and went, nah, you’re my allrounder. “When Rooty [Joe Root] walked off with four-for [in Hyderabad] I did say to him, “see, I told ya I’d make a bowler out of ya.”When success plays out in those terms, a captain doing the little things right, like helping take care of the cricket ball, starts to fade into the background.
****
A lot of Rohit’s tenure, including in the white-ball formats, has been hampered by key players missing out due to injury. It was a point of such consternation that he brought it up when asked about a lack of ICC silverware when India were in the West Indies last year. He was annoyed that he didn’t have always have access to a full squad.Here, in this series, he’s been better at rolling with the punches. He’s everywhere at India’s first training session in Visakhapatnam. First, he’s batting. Then he peels his pads off and goes to study how the rest of his men are doing. He has a lot of time for Sarfaraz Khan and some last-minute advice for Yashasvi Jaiswal. He claps the bowlers on when they create opportunities. He doesn’t look like a guy who’s even the slightest bit unhappy with his situation.”After the [first] game, the atmosphere is absolutely relaxed,” KS Bharat says. “They just told us not to panic, which we are not. The instruction is very clear. It’s a long Test series, and we have played a lot of series like this in the past and we as individuals have to focus on good things and which we want to do in the coming games and everything is chill and relaxed. We are definitely looking to play good cricket as a team, that’s the message from the captain and the coach and we are very confident about it.”Stokes proved last week that a captain’s belief can sometimes be enough to compensate for his players’ inexperience. It could be Rohit’s turn this week.