England recorded a thumping 227-run win over India in the first Test as the English bowlers took less than 60 overs to bowl out India in the fourth innings. This is India’s first home loss since 2017 and now they have their work cut out for a series win and Test Championship final qualification.
Ashwin, the only impactful spinner
Ravichandran Ashwin is arguably one of the best contemporary spinners at present and India’s primary spinner. In the first Test match against England, he was Virat Kohli’s prime weapon in the spinning department. Ashwin took three wickets for 146 runs in 55.1 overs in the first innings and went on to take six wickets in the second innings for just 61 runs in 17.3 overs.
But apart from him, the other two spinners did not have decent outings. Shahbaaz Nadeem was playing his second Test and was short of confidence which was visible from the number of no-balls he bowled being a left-arm orthodox spinner. On the other hand, Ashwin interestingly bowled the first no-ball of his Test career after more than 20,000 deliveries.
The curious case of Kuldeep Yadav
A couple of years back, the head coach of the Indian team, Ravi Shastri had announced Kuldeep Yadav as India’s go-to spinner for all upcoming overseas Test matches. That did not happen and he has not played any Test match since then. Kuldeep Yadav had travelled to Australia with the side but never received a call. In this Test match also, Nadeem got the nod.
However, after this not so impactful performance of Shahbaaz Nadeem, Indian cricket team management should be having some brainstorming sessions. Out of six Test matches, Yadav has played three so far at home and taken 14 wickets at an economy of 3.61 with a five-wicket haul. Although Kohli said, ” When you playing two off-spinners, Kuldeep becomes more or less same kind of spinner taking the ball away,” the skipper did not deny the chance of trying out combinations.
Absence of Ravindra Jadeja
As Sunil Gavaskar already mentioned after the Chennai Test match, dropping Washington Sundar after his heroics in Australia was not an option. Moreover, Sundar proved to be effective during India’s first innings with an unbeaten 85 to his name. He was the second-highest scorer for India and his innings gave stability to the Indian innings at the lower-order. Still, a Ravindra Jadeja mindset is important when the top-order collapses.
What Sundar did was outstanding, but Jadeja was missed especially during India’s second innings. His injury has been proving to be a huge blow for India. Jadeja does not only provide solidity to the nerve-wracking situation, he is the all-rounder a side needs in such situations. When Indian bowlers struggled to give a breakthrough, it was a Jadeja spell that Kohli must have missed.
Failure of senior batsmen
India’s senior batsmen had a forgettable Test match as Rohit Sharma scored just six and 12 whereas Ajinkya Rahane scored only 1 run in two innings. Rahane’s contribution as a batsman has been the talking point for quite a long time. Consistency has been an issue and in this type of game when the team needs a concrete batting performance, failings become too evident.
Even Virat Kohli scored only 11 in the first innings; he came back with a solid flawless 72 in the second innings but that did not help much. The senior members from the top-order need to pull up their socks in three days. Another poor show may force the selectors to consider Mayank Agarwal in one of those slots.