England Versus India - 1st Test (9 Nov - 13 Nov)

[Dr Cricket]

Wasn't that Clarrie Grimmett?

Not certain the toss was a big factor in this Test. Losing it would have added pressure to the situation of the tourists, yes. But the pitch lasted, and England were hard to shift in a potentially tricky third innings.

I disagree though the pitch went on Day 4.
england had 2 days of very flat batting, india one day and they would lose the game if Ashwin went for zero on day 4 when the pitch looked tricky to bat.
india were still trailing around 180 at the time, india gone on day 4 england would basically win because they batted more on the flat deck.
but england did bat well in both innings and bowled better though.
but think the result would have been different if England had to bowl on day 1 and started batting on day 3.
For me the toss shouldn't be important and both team should get similar batting conditions on both innings.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Batting first is an advantage, no doubt (as it has been for India in recent times). But a pitch that lasts for three days does offer some equality. Both teams wrestle for control of the first nine sessions. A better fielding display from India might have given India the opportunity to bat, say five of the first nine sessions. But then, a better spin attack might have given England the chance to bat again for the ninth session. The struggle for advantage on the first three days going into the more problematic last two can be a fascinating ritual.

[hopeforthebest]

England batted on day 4 after spending a very long time in the field and the pitch was still good for batting so I don't think the toss was so important as far as pitch conditions were concerned but batting first and putting on a good total was a big help.

[Dr Cricket]

If england maintain Ashwin bowling average of 53 against them in the next 4 series they will go a long way from either winning the series or drawing it.
crazy how Ashwin struggles so much against england.
must be feeling the pressure now.

[Dr Cricket]

In the battle of the all rounders.
Ben Stokes 159 runs and 1 wicket for 54 runs
Ashwin 102 runs and 3 wickets for 226 runs.

Think stokes marginally ahead so far.
Averages 159 runs with the bat and averages 54 with the ball.
Ashwin averages 51 with the bat and 74 with the ball.

both not really doing much with the ball, stokes not bowling much and Ashwin not threatening much or taking wicket but both batting well so far.

[Gingerfinch]

Stokes had a much better game, according to the stats.

I'm certain Ashwin will have at least two-three five wicket hauls by the time this series finishes though.

[Dr Cricket]

TBH the more I look at the game, the more impression I get of me being wrong on the pitch.
in the end the draw probably the right result with england batting and bowling better with india just doing enough with the bat to get the draw.
the first 3 days was turgid stuff though, only really day 4/5 got interesting and at that time many people called it for a draw.
suspect not many neutral enjoyed the game with aussie being brutal which is quite ironic considering they were moaning non stop about the sri lankan pitches and now they want matches to finish in 3 days or 4 days.

[Dr Cricket]

Stokes had a much better game, according to the stats.

I'm certain Ashwin will have at least two-three five wicket hauls by the time this series finishes though.

think Ashwin will edge the statistics because he bowls more and likely to get way better bowling figures, not sure Stokes will bowl much in this series, he will only really bowl if the spinners are awful and they looking at reverse swing to get wickets.

[Dr Cricket]

great stat this.

24.58 Difference in averages between England's spinners and India's spinners in this match. The slow bowlers for England took 13 wickets at an average of 33.30, compared to nine wickets at 57.88 by India's spinners. England's spinners delivered about 60 balls per wicket whereas India spinners bowled more than 100 balls per wicket. The last time overseas spinners took more wickets with a better average than home spinners in India was at the Wankhede in 2012-13, when England's spinners took 19 wickets at 17.31 and India's took nine wickets at 46.44.

pressure must be mounting on Ashwin and kohli now.
Ashwin had an excuse in 2012 but not sure he can have many excuses for Ali, Rashid and Ansari out bowling him especially when those 3 spinners didn't really bowl well either.
Although to be fair england spin record is only actually better because they took 6 late wicket in the last session, but they did bowl way better than people expected so maybe the deck was hard to bowl spin but take nothing away from the english spinners they bowled better and deserved the wickets.
be interesting to see how the battle between the spinners go in more friendly bowling conditions.

Found an interesting stat as well for all those people going on about the toss in india since the last proper draw in nagpur, excluding the banglore rain draw.
teams winning the toss and winning 6 and teams losing the toss and winning the game 3, so not really a massive advantage either and the main thing being all games won by india and all of those easily as well, so again toss not important.
if you go 4 test earlier and include the england series it goes to 7 and 5 which is pretty close to 50-50.
So really the toss isn't that important in india, it is just an unique phenomenon that most of the toss have been won by the Asian sides that tend to be massive favourites in Asia so they tend to win the games anyway, Think this games was probably the first time after a long time in asia I felt a team needed to win the toss, the rest of the time it didn't really matter but that doesn't mean teams don't want to bat first but it just won't define the game.

[Dr Cricket]

Also great stat to show how batting been difficult in india for a while now.
"2009 Last time a Test in India had an average runs per wicket of more than 50 - the Ahmedabad Test against Sri Lanka which featured an average of 76.09. The average in this Rajkot Test was 50.24. There have been 19 Tests with an average of more than 50 since 2010 but this Test is the first in India."
make sense as well since I thought around 2010 the pitches started to change in india with Dhoni being adamant that his spinners need help on day 1.

[bigfluffylemon]

I see the press are already declaring Hammed to be the Next Big Thing in English cricket, on the basis of one match.

He played well, no doubt, but let's give him the whole series and the home summer before making long term judgements.

[Gingerfinch]

I see the press are already declaring Hammed to be the Next Big Thing in English cricket, on the basis of one match.

He played well, no doubt, but let's give him the whole series and the home summer before making long term judgements.

They'll want him dropped if he has a couple of low scores.

[bigfluffylemon]

I see the crisis talk has already started in the Australian press. Australia hasn't even lost this game yet, and have three unbeaten summers in a row under their belt. Meanwhile as England show some encouraging signs there are already mutterings about whether they can win next year's Ashes. I think that's incredibly premature. Even if you plonked England down in Australia right now I wouldn't be confident they could win, and Australia are going to pick up from the hole they are currently in.

[sussexpob]

I see the crisis talk has already started in the Australian press. Australia hasn't even lost this game yet

They would be hard pressed to lose this game, they werent even in it

[sussexpob]

Jon Angew described Hameeds debut as an "I was there moment".....

Cue him scoring 100 runs in the next 6 innings and not playing the final test.

No holding back on this one is there.

Just to note, England's youngest 50 scorer averaged 21 in test cricket, and never made 20 tests.... just saying.