England tour of India

[alfie]

When discussing the follow on last night, no one presumed England would not impose the fo and wouldn't declare either.

Didn't really surprise me. Thought it might have happened in a bit more of a hurry !

Suppose follow on advocates might say England could have bowled India out to a similar timetable and had tomorrow off

Suspect India might have batted a bit differently though.

[Arthur Crabtree]

One for Leach already.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Could do with another tonight and get a nightwatcher in.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Stumps. India's day, but England well on top.

[Durhamfootman]

well.... that was a pretty bizarre final session. England allowing the game to just drift in the 3rd innings, and that lethargy carried over into the 4th. About the only time there seemed to any energy in the field was when Leach knocked Rohit's off stump back.

England very generously handed India 10 overs less to face, for very few runs, and India managed to avoid playing a further 4 overs by slowing everything down in this session.

I genuinely don't have a clue quite what to make of all that

[Durhamfootman]

Nice wicket from Leach, though. Very well bowled

[Durhamfootman]

I think you could probably have taken that session out of the game, hidden it in a cupboard and nobody would have missed it apart from Sharma and Leach

[Arthur Crabtree]

BBC over by over says that of all the England bowlers to take 30 second innings wickets in the past 60 years, Leach has the best average. Not so good in the first innings.

[Arthur Crabtree]

First innings, 57
Second innings, 20.

[alfie]

Yes , Leach looks like the key man tomorrow. Can see him bowling a lot with a cluster of close catchers if India try to block up. Actually I'd imagine several of them will still play their shots , and make sure England can't just prey on them with fielders all round the bat - how Pant in particular does with his aggressive style might be very significant again.

England really could have done with one more wicket tonight ; and I'd have thought it wouldn't have been too hard to have got an extra few overs in - but who knows ? It may not have made any difference. As it is they have a ball,that is still reasonably hard and relatively fresh bunch of bowlers to restart. And the prospect of a second new ball shortly after tea - though they'd want to have taken a fair few wickets before then. It appears they were fairly deliberately setting up for just the fifty odd minutes they had tonight , rather than a run target : somewhat odd tactic , I thought but I guess we will be able to judge that better in hindsight after tomorrow...

And I guess we can wonder what might have happened had Root enforced the follow on. Might have bowled India out for 150 and all off to the beach ...or they might be resuming at 200/3 with the bowlers 161 overs down over two days and looking for an ice bath. Something we can never know.

Whatever comes , it has been a very interesting match. Getting a few of them , to lighten the gloom in other areas.

[sussexpob]

Hope he's out looking for cheese and never finds out.

I have been nursing a serious hangover after joining an online superbowl party last night, I think the mere sight of cheese might require me to rush to the toilet.

[sussexpob]

As for the game, I am not personally surprised by England's approach, Id have thought it was pretty normal. There is a sort of paradox in play with this sort of situation, because you will have no doubt a rough target of runs in mind where you feel your opposition cant get near (mostly 400 at a very minimum), but if you smash the ball to all parts and get 150 runs in 10 overs, you actually then end with a target at the minimum level that gives the opposition an insane amount of time to chase it down. A good indication of this in this situation; when England lost their last proper bat at 6 down, they were 370 ahead and a potential 130 odd overs left. That can be chased down at 2.8 an over. It requires your opponent to provide no extra effort in their run scoring levels to chase it down. If England had plundered their runs in 10 overs less, then that RR actually goes to 2.6.

India in both these scenarios could bat out a session or two not fully committing to win or draw, and if wickets dont go down the last two sessions allows them to jam on the accelerator. Its to risky, no captain is ever going to give a team under 400 target at a RR well within the comfortable spectrum of normal playing. England ended up losing all their batting by 350-370 range, they had to bring the tail in because they hadnt batted the match to safety.

IF England scored very quickly, then the target amount needed would need to be bigger. If England batted longer, theyd need less runs. England didnt have enough to declare, so needed to score runs. TO guarantee that, they had to play properly and not throw it away.

This is where those "but you can be bowled out in the 4th innings style arguments" meet a problem; because you can also push to force your scoring rate up, but naturally this means risk losing wickets. If everyone slogs then you can end up with a collapsed third innings, much like what happened here. England lost the meat of their innings before they had enough to declare. So they ended batting another 20 overs kill time to cover their own failure.

In fact, because you never know what is required or how much time you need, you are always playing guesswork which just reduces the efficiency and value of your wickets.

I dont really understand the thinking behind it. If you are worried you cant block out a session at the end with 10 wickets because the pitch will be a day older, then how is throwing an innings away in 40 overs any better?

[bigfluffylemon]

Exactly. That's why you force the follow-on to take this nonsense out of the equation. India have forced England to bat out 20 overs that could have been used to bowl India out.

Now you'd much rather be where England are than India, and it may be that tonight we're saying it turns out it didn't matter. But if India save the game 7 or 8 down, England will be kicking themselves. As I said yesterday, winning in India is hard. You have to take every chance with both hands. England will have the chance to draw other games.

[bigfluffylemon]

Pujara out but the runs are flowing. It's obviously not a minefield and India are trying to force England onto the back foot a bit.

Must say I'm impressed with Gill so far. Could be the next big thing. Early days, but very promising.

[bigfluffylemon]

Yes! The mockers worked.