Merseyside Cricket Online at the Test: Ineffective England may end up regretting insipid final day as India secure draw

Ben Stokes offers a handshake… but Ravindra Jadeja has eyes on a century
(Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)

Towards tea, an Ed Sheeran lookalike in the Party Stand at Emirates Old Trafford revelled in the spotlight, posing for photos with fans who were either tricked or going along with it.

On the pitch, you would be forgiven for thinking another set of lookalikes had taken the place of the England side who had dominated the first three days of this match.

If India go on to square the series at the Oval, England’s performance here should haunt them.

Over three days and a session, they put themselves in a perfect position to earn a victory that would have put them 3-1 up with one to play. 

But they let it slip with a tepid, directionless and insipid display in the field.

It won’t grab the attention as much as a Bazball batting collapse, but this was an abject failure as bad as anything they have produced in the past three years.

It came even after they managed to take the key wickets of KL Rahul and Shubman Gill, exposing India’s middle order with only a brittle tail to come. 

Taking lunch at 223/4, still 88 behind having managed just 49 runs in the opening session, India might have been concerned about what the hosts might manage with their tails up and in helpful conditions.

Washington Sundar and Ravindra Jadeja knew they were the best hope for their side; after them came Shardul Thakur, an injured Rishabh Pant and three genuine tailenders.

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They needn’t have worried. Instead of going for the jugular, England dropped catches, they bowled without a consistent plan, they burned their reviews (not that it mattered), they overstepped, they misfielded.

Jadeja and Washington stood firm, picking off the many, many bad balls and blocking the merely unremarkable ones. By the scorecard, this will look like a defiant rearguard rescue act, but in truth they were not made to work for it.

Stokes, who made the first breakthrough by pinning Rahul for 90 with one which kept low, at least has the excuse of being injured. 

Jofra Archer had Shubman Gill caught behind just after completing his century, then had Jadeja dropped by Joe Root first ball. Chris Woakes often beat the outside edge. 

It wasn’t that they weren’t trying, it was just that they were ineffective. Which is worse, somehow.

As for Liam Dawson, this Test should live long in the memory whenever the debate about “rewarding county form” comes up. Dominant for Hampshire, the left-armer sent down 25 overs today on a wearing pitch and created not a single chance.

Ormskirk’s Tom Hartley, who took 10 wickets and scored a century for Lancashire last week, will have been watching with interest – as will Rehan Ahmed, who did the same for Leicestershire.

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Speaking of spinning all-rounders, Washington and Jadeja both reached 50 in the same Stokes over, at the same time as India took the lead, 20 minutes before tea.

By then, the majority of the England fans in the crowd had given up, and the Indians were noisily cavorting – scarcely able to believe the way their jailors had handed over the keys.

The 100 partnership came up with the last ball before tea, and England could barely drag themselves off the pitch. Having started the day as hot favourites, they had 35 overs left to conjure up six wickets then a run chase.

They managed none. With 15 overs to go, Stokes offered to shake hands – but Jadeja was on 89 and Washington on 80, and quite fancied batting on.

Indian fans might ask where Jadeja’s appetite for runs was when he attempted to somehow block out for a win at Lord’s the other week – here, with the genuine hard work already done, he and Washington helped themselves to two of Test history’s less meaningful centuries by carting Root and Harry Brook around the park.

Eventually, at 425/4 and no chance of a result, the handshakes came to bring the Test to a slightly farcical end.

It’s not that there are no positives for England to take to the Oval. Root’s runs, Stokes’ all-round brilliance (logic says he skips the final Test, but since when did logic have anything to do with Stokes) and the way the bowlers stuck to their task to restrict India’s first innings.

They will win or draw this series, and who knows what the wounded India XI will look like when they convene again on Thursday.

But the overwhelming sense here was of an opportunity missed, and a weakness exposed.

from Merseyside Cricket Online https://ift.tt/0jeqKFM