England tour of India

[Arthur Crabtree]

Salute to Ben Foakes. Showed what could be done.

[bigfluffylemon]

So, definitely worth replacing Jimmy and Bess with Broad and Moeen.

[Durhamfootman]

when is a shot, not a shot? I don't believe England would have bothered reviewing that if they thought the batsman had offered a shot there. Is tucking your bat behind your leg and padding up playing a shot? Apparently it is...... not sure myself

[Durhamfootman]

umpires getting every decision wrong atm. This time they missed an edge in an lbw shout

Not their finest 10 mins

[Durhamfootman]

Well... that's as comprehensive a days cricket as India are likely to enjoy.

Excellent work from India today. Got pretty much everything right.

[sussexpob]

Some people might disagree, but I think there is always a tendency on pitches like this for batters to overthink their approach and try to adapt to conditions a little too much. Its almost like batsman are thinking that, if balls are always out there with your name on, playing to the textbook can get you out straight away, or at anytime, so its necessary to set up differently.

This innings proves somewhat why that's a bad idea, because I think aside from Lawrence who got a vicious bouncing turner, all the rest have failed not because of anything coming off the pitch, but because of bad techniques. Burns has no footwork, Pope is almost falling over and losing control of the bat in his hands, Moeen edges out from a weird almost chest on stance.

The most indicative is the Sibley/Root wickets. It too me back 20 odd years to the Fletcher tour of India when England continually tried to sweep every delivery as a very purposeful tactic, and all got out to it. The first test shows the sweep is a weapon in Asia, but on pitches that are slow and low. When the ball spits and turns, you have to choose to sweep only on balls you can get over the ball to. Root particularly is taking on a ball that spinning miles, and against the spin. You simply cant control them, so looking to play that shot to everything is not a good tactic. It was always ending badly.

[sussexpob]

Ben bowled by Ashwin for 18. Had no clue their about the length. Spun nicely away from the bat to knock off the stump. The bat wasn't anywhere close to the ball. Fails to cover the ball by body as well as bat. Poor batting that. Tailender like dismissal.

Eng 52/5.

Disagree. Reckon that was an excellent piece of bowling . Sure , Stokes might have played it better ; but that's true of almost every dismissal. Easier from behind a keyboard.

Its a half volley. Hes playing an angled bat against the spin. I have to agree with Adi, its a terrible shot. He plants his feet by stepping to the leg side almost at delivery and doesnt move. If he actually moves his feet forward its a very easy ball to control and smother. This is 101 playing in Asia stuff really. The fact it spits and rips after bouncing to me is not relevant, because the ball is so full he should be forward and on top of it. He made an ordinary ball look good.

I guess this is the Stokes effect. If thats any other batsman in the game, he gets canned for playing that. But Stokes is an infallible genius, so we will remember it as an unplayable ball.

I think only Lawrence got a ball that really looked tough.

[Durhamfootman]

The most indicative is the Sibley/Root wickets. It too me back 20 odd years to the Fletcher tour of India when England continually tried to sweep every delivery as a very purposeful tactic, and all got out to it. The first test shows the sweep is a weapon in Asia, but on pitches that are slow and low. When the ball spits and turns, you have to choose to sweep only on balls you can get over the ball to. Root particularly is taking on a ball that spinning miles, and against the spin. You simply cant control them, so looking to play that shot to everything is not a good tactic. It was always ending badly.

On comms, they were talking about how England in the first test didn't sweep Ashwin at all during the first 15 overs he bowled because they'd identified how dangerous it was, yet in the second test they seemed to pull the sweep out pretty much straight away. I can kind of forgive Root because he used the sweep to great effect in the first test, but it's hard to understand why they would do it today after the success they enjoyed not sweeping early on in the first test. Foakes seemed to be the batsman who coped best today. Apart from late in the innings when he was running out partners, he looked to be in no difficulty at all. I felt a bit sorry for him at the end.... having left Broad 2 balls to face in the over, he must have been dismayed to see him take such a great big swipe at the ball.

[meninblue]

Ben bowled by Ashwin for 18. Had no clue their about the length. Spun nicely away from the bat to knock off the stump. The bat wasn't anywhere close to the ball. Fails to cover the ball by body as well as bat. Poor batting that. Tailender like dismissal.

Eng 52/5.

Disagree. Reckon that was an excellent piece of bowling . Sure , Stokes might have played it better ; but that's true of almost every dismissal. Easier from behind a keyboard.

Its a half volley. Hes playing an angled bat against the spin. I have to agree with Adi, its a terrible shot. He plants his feet by stepping to the leg side almost at delivery and doesnt move. If he actually moves his feet forward its a very easy ball to control and smother. This is 101 playing in Asia stuff really. The fact it spits and rips after bouncing to me is not relevant, because the ball is so full he should be forward and on top of it. He made an ordinary ball look good.

I guess this is the Stokes effect. If thats any other batsman in the game, he gets canned for playing that. But Stokes is an infallible genius, so we will remember it as an unplayable ball.

I think only Lawrence got a ball that really looked tough.

The bat is angled because; he was stuck in crease (read length wrong) and more towards leg stump and hence in a position of having to play inside out type of shot. Angled bat was one way he could play it as he was nowhere in line of the ball. To me he failed to judge the length as well as line. The other option could have been play a cut shot. Then he tried to somehow escape getting bowled by trying to play away from body but the bat did not meet the ball.

If he was an Indian batsman who would have got out like that then hell lot of criticism would fall on him. Just like how Ajinkya Rahane is criticized for having weakness against spinners.

The technique aginst top class spinners like Ashwin has to be spot on. If not such batsmen should be reading from hand during delivery whether the spinner is trying to bowl off spin or top spin or wrong one or googly or carrom ball becomes more important. The line and length judgment then is another part. Then the final execution by using hand eye coordination in last stage by hitting with middle of the bat away from fielders is they key. Ben Stokes failed on all stages of playing that ball.

[meninblue]

It is very nice that we are in position to win with a bigger margin than the first test we lost. India should post on 450 and try to bowl England below 200 in Day 4. Just get a bigger margin victory than what we conceded last test. Will be very glad if team manages to do that and shows the dominance in home conditions which we expect, more so after winning the toss and batting first.

And in 3rd test dismiss Joe early. The England batting depends so much on how he performs.

Very happy with form of Rishabh.

[Durhamfootman]

Anyone know how to find the highlights on 4?

I've been searching in vain!

there are highlights on More 4 at 1340 today. First time I've spotted any

[Durhamfootman]

Very happy with form of Rishabh.

yes... he looks like a handful both behind the stumps and with bat in hand. 2 cracking catches today, both tough, both needing razor sharp reactions. Top work!

[Red Devil]

when is a shot, not a shot? I don't believe England would have bothered reviewing that if they thought the batsman had offered a shot there. Is tucking your bat behind your leg and padding up playing a shot? Apparently it is...... not sure myself

agreed - Rohit was lucky there

[Red Devil]

Very happy with form of Rishabh.

yes... he looks like a handful both behind the stumps and with bat in hand. 2 cracking catches today, both tough, both needing razor sharp reactions. Top work!

tbh he made the first one really hard by reacting so late. That ball was always heading leg side so he should have been moving across as soon as the ball left the bowlers hand but he goes really late - great effort to get there in the end though.

Hopefully those will give him confidence as he really does need to improve his wicket-keeping generally - he adds so much with that bat that Ind really need him at the moment

[meninblue]

Very happy with form of Rishabh.

yes... he looks like a handful both behind the stumps and with bat in hand. 2 cracking catches today, both tough, both needing razor sharp reactions. Top work!

Saha is India's best keeper till date if we use only wicket keeping skills to rate keeper.

Dhoni was better than Saha as keeper only in the aspect of fast stumpings while keeping against spinners. Otherwise Saha is No 1 overall.

Rishabh is young and he will improve once he keeps more against Ashwin and Jadeja. In fact Rishabh and Saha have to keep against better pace bowlers like Jasprit who is outright fast with a different bowling action and Sham who is also very quick than what Dhoni had to keep. I feel Rishabh will end up as a much better keeper than Dhoni as far as flying catches are concerned. Rishabh had put on weight and is more chubby as compared to Dhoni, but his diving catches have been reasonably good. He does drops some half chances when he dives like we saw him drop one against Jasprit in his first over. But once Rishabh inproves his fitness (Virat always stresses importance of fitness and leads from front in that aspect), he will get better than Dhoni. This is India's best core bowling attack (Jasprit + Shami + Ishant + Ash + Jaddu). Keeping against them will only keep him more mentally aware and improve further.

As a batsman Rishabh has two tons (one in England and other in Australi iirc) in such short test career. Dhoni after so many tests, still did not end up with one test ton o36 verseas iirc.

Saha is 36 yrs. Rishabh is just 23 and he is getting experience to keep against one of the best current test bowling attacks as a whole.

The think tank had recently said that Saha would be first choice keeper for home tests and Rishabh was an ovrseas pick. After ciriticism, the think tank dropped plans and played Rishabh. He was even dropped after NZ tour. The impatience of Kohliis a threat to Rishabh's career as we have seen across formats. Otherwise if properly managed and if Rishabh improves his shortcomings in keeping and some of shot selection in batting, he haspotential to be India's best keeper batsman. Otherwise as pure keeper Saha is India's best imo.