A gripping series and a fantastic finale

The Hindu

a day ago

How do you describe this series? How do you even begin to start to describe this series? A classic seems too cliched, an epic too obvious.
For five Tests and 25 days and more than 70 sessions, two teams at different ends of the experience spectrum went toe to toe. Shots were fired, counter measures deployed, counterpunches thrown. Sparks flew, tempers frayed, sometimes, shoulders made contact.
When the dust settled, there was nothing to separate England and India. Absolutely nothing. England, the hosts, had a greater volume of Test work coming into this series but India, unyielding India with a youngish batting group and a first-time captain, more than held their own, bouncing back with unbelievable resilience every time they appeared out for the count.
With a little more awareness and a little more luck, India could easily have wrapped their hands around the inaugural Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy. They won more sessions than their seasoned opponents, but the sessions lost came back to haunt them. It appeared as if that trend would spill over to the fifth Test too, though India didn't quite lose the session so much as squander a moment. It was a moment that could have hurt them badly, but such is the unbelievable competitiveness of the man who was the principal actor of that misstep that not even the cricketing gods could stop from smiling down benevolently at him. Finally.
India had numerous heroes during this thrill-a-minute 2-2 ride. Skipper Shubman Gill, who stacked up 754 runs in his first series in that capacity, the most by an Indian captain ever and the second most by an Indian, after Sunil Gavaskar's 774 in the Caribbean in 1971. K.L. Rahul, who compiled twin hundreds in the same series for the first time in his 11-year Test career. Ravindra Jadeja, the third entrant into the 500-run club, who took consistency to a new level with five half-centuries and a ton in nine innings. Rishabh Pant, who slammed two hundreds and three fifties, the last of them on a broken foot in his final innings of the series in Manchester. Yashasvi Jaiswal, who started and ended the series with hundreds. Washington Sundar, who was the hero with the ball at Lord's and with the bat in Manchester with a match-saving unbeaten hundred as well as at the Oval, where his second-innings fifty in the last batter's company pushed England's target from a challenging to an arduous one. Jasprit Bumrah, who picked up 14 wickets despite playing only three Tests. Prasidh Krishna, same number of Tests, same number of wickets as Bumrah, at a higher economy rate but also at a better strike-rate.
And, of course, Mohammed Siraj.
Siraj wore a bemused, slightly offended smile when, during the course of a question, the questioner said he hadn't had a good Border-Gavaskar Trophy series in Australia in the winter. 'Sir, I took 20 wickets in that series,' he replied, without malice, without a hint of anger or annoyance. So he did, but because Bumrah finished with 32 wickets, many of them top-order scalps unlike here in England, the perception was that India's bowling attack was a one-man army.
Far from it. Siraj was the rock around which Bumrah built his success. Seldom has one man bowled so well for so long and had so little success. Siraj's luck had to turn. It just had to. That it finally did here in England, where he finished with an all-comers' high 23 wickets, has elevated his standing, enhanced his reputation. He has gone from sometime with a huge heart to someone with a huge heart and immense skills, because unfortunately, we live in a world where skill is measured by numbers. Twenty-three has a nice ring to it, apparently.
Driving force
Especially once India lost Pant, Siraj had to be the engine room. The driving force. The enforcer with the ball when Bumrah wasn't around – he wasn't for the two wins, in Birmingham and at The Oval, in what must be put down to coincidence – but also the one to gee up his colleagues, to ensure that energy levels didn't drop, that the fight wasn't given up before the fat lady had sung, that the towel wasn't thrown in prematurely. Without Virat Kohli, he had to be the one to orchestrate the crowd, to get them to lift their decibel levels so that that could in turn lift the team when it was deflated, when it felt that things were slipping away from them. Siraj performed both those roles with aplomb, but never lost sight of the bigger goal, which was to deliver the goods for his team.
Again perhaps coincidentally, both his five-wicket hauls came when Bumrah wasn't in the XI. In Birmingham, his six for 70 in the first innings opened up a 180-run lead that translated into a series-levelling 336-run victory. At The Oval, with the match having seemingly gotten away from them following the Harry Brook-Joe Root fourth-wicket carnage, in part because he himself offered Brook a 'life' with the batter on 19, Siraj found a second wind to finish with five for 104, among them three for nine in 4.1 outstanding overs under great pressure on Monday morning.
India had only 35 runs to play with on the last of 25 days of this riveting series. They had to prise out four wickets to win the Test and square the series, which didn't give Gill, or Siraj and Prasidh, much to work with. But that's all they had; in the end, that's all they needed. In 56 minutes, they encapsulated the series in a nutshell with Siraj as the primary protagonist, and the valiant, wounded Chris Woakes providing a stirring subtext.
Those 56 minutes tested Gill's composure and tactical nous. It will be fair to say that on both counts, he wasn't found wanting. In Leeds, he was understandably a half-step behind the game, chasing the ball with his fields and looking a little lost when England hunted down 371. But as the series progressed and as his bat caught fire, he became more assertive, if not authoritative. He is still a work in progress, but it is impressive to see both the work and the progress. Gill is unafraid to seek out counsel, either from his deputy Pant or the vastly experienced Rahul, who has led India in all three formats previously and is an excellent thinker who relished the responsibility of being the senior statesman of the side.
That status was thrust on Rahul by the retirements of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and R. Ashwin at various stages in the last eight months. Gill's elevation as Rohit's successor didn't come without raised eyebrows; if he hasn't already silenced the Doubting Thomases, he most certainly won't in the future, but to the young man's credit, he doesn't really care about all those things. That's not to say that he is indifferent or cocooned in his own bubble, that he is disrespectful and self-obsessed. He seems to know what he wants, and how to go about achieving what he wants. His tactics (which, to be fair, aren't all entirely his own alone) might be questioned, but there is a Gill logic to his methodology and Indian cricket must trust his instincts, now more than ever, because he has emphatically earned his spurs.
Fears that India would be blown away in the absence of their two immediate past captains – not so much Ashwin, because he hasn't been the same force away from Asia and the Caribbean – proved spectacularly unfounded. Giant question marks were hung around India's batting; after all, Jaiswal, Sai Sudharsan, Karun Nair, Washington Sundar, Abhimanyu Easwaran and Dhruv Jurel hadn't played a Test on English soil, Gill himself had played just three and didn't have the greatest record outside Asia. But England's predilection towards Bazball necessitated flat tracks which allowed India's young batters to find their feet right from the first innings of the first Test at Headingley. While it will be facile to pronounce that they didn't miss Kohli and/or Rohit, even they will acknowledge that their task was made easier by the surfaces that encouraged them to get into the series at the first time of asking.
In a series of many positives, India has some problem areas that can't be wished away. Such as Bumrah's fragile back and the obvious need to manage him. How his now-on, now-off avatar affects the team, the composition and mindset of the bowling group. And, as importantly, how to string together a bunch of fast bowlers like Kohli and Ravi Shastri did some seven years or so back, which allowed India to compete on an equal footing once they travelled outside the subcontinent.
Clearly, Akash Deep was out of his physical fitness depth despite his ten-wicket match haul in Birmingham. By the end of the Oval Test, he had nothing left to give, which was disappointing because he had missed the previous game with a groin/hip niggle and therefore didn't have a great deal of workload coming into the decider. He did weigh in with a crucial 66 in the second innings as the nightwatcher, which was commendable, but his primary task is looking for, and taking, wickets. His lack of fitness percolated to his fielding too. Whether India can afford to carry more than one bowler at less than peak physical conditioning can't be a topic up for debate. There can be no negotiations on that front; an exception can be made for Bumrah because, well, he is Bumrah, but there can only be one Bumrah, right?
Comparisons are being drawn with the Ashes of two years back here in England, which also ended 2-2. The hosts came to the final Test at The Oval needing a victory to square the series; this time, the shoe was on the other foot, and India did an England, with their narrowest margin of victory by runs in Test history. Seal this series in your mind, and play it on loop. Because you will be hard pressed for an encore.