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The first Test between India and England, in the end, is a story of two very different pairs of days. The first two days went along expected lines – the Indian spinners sent the England batting lineup into a tailspin and then the home batters made the visitors feel the heat. Then came the third and fourth day, in which England flicked switches in every way. Their bowlers were on the money and while their top order batters largely couldn’t fire, their lower order joined hands with a sensational Ollie Pope to heap misery on India’s celebrated spinners. Then their own inexperienced spin attack, led by a part-timer in Joe Root, an injured Jack Leach and an irresistible Tom Hartley, gave the Indians a taste of their own medicine and England, extraordinarily, took a 1-0 lead in the five-match Test series.
It all seemingly started with the morning session of the third day. India had bowled out England for a score of 246 and India came out to bat on 421/7 with Ravindra Jadeja batting on 81 and Axar Patel on 35. A century was expected for Jadeja, or a half century for Axar Patel, or both. The way the match was going, it was the third possibility that most were considering as the most likely outcome. Instead what happened was India lost their last three wickets for 15 runs in 11 overs. Jadeja was the third Indian batter to get to the 80s. The previous two, along with the rest of the Indian top five, had all been out caught while trying to muscle the ball to the boundary. At the time, this fact was seen as a sign of intent and positivity.
An innings victory still on
That minor collapse was not seen as the start of anything really. It was an outlier in a match that India had dominated and the consensus was that if Root was extracting so much spin out of the surface, Jadeja, Ashwin and Axar are set to have a field day. There was a marked difference in the way England approached the early part of their second innings though and they ensured that they not only lost just one wicket in the first 15 overs, but also scored 89 runs.
Normal service seemed to resume in the second session though. Jasprit Bumrah suddenly came into play with a roar as he accounted for the wicket of Ben Duckett and then England lost their experienced middle-order engine room of Root, Jonny Bairstow and captain Ben Stokes for scores of two, 10 and six respectively. Conclusions were starting to be written and the match was not expected to last too far beyond resumption of play after Tea. Even after Ollie Pope and Ben Foakes saw England through to the end of the second session.
The wind changes
It was only in this third session that it became clear that something special was happening. Foakes and Pope weathered the storm early on and then started scoring freely. The sixth-wicket stand crossed 50 and eventually Pope reached his century. He got a standing ovation from the crowd. He managed to see England through to the end of the day with Foakes at the other end for most of it. While the latter fell towards the end of the day, Pope built another good looking partnership with Rehan Ahmed. England led by 125 runs at the end of Day 3, the match was far from over and yet, there was still a long way to go for the visitors to do the unthinkable. Their lead was only 126 and this is India batting in India.
The next day, England came out and made India toil. Suddenly, the Indian spinners seemed irritated, their lines and lengths were not producing the desired results. Foakes and Pope’s partnership ended on 112, and then came a 64-run stand with Rehan and then an 80-run stand with Tom Hartley. Pope ended up outscoring India’s lead itself, eventually being dismissed on 196 and England set India a target of 231. All of a sudden, the fact that India’s top five all fell while going for sixes and fours seemed silly and unnecessary. As head coach Rahul Dravid would say in the post-match press conference, India’s batters failing to get to a century would go on to bite them in the back.
Hartley’s redemption
India had succesfully chased down totals higher than 231 four times at home, while the West Indies had done it once against India in New Delhi in 1987. However, the latest instance of something like that happening was back in 2012, which was also before India’s last series defeat at home. It meant that in the 11-year dominance that India had enjoyed at home since then, they had never been challenged to this extent while batting last. Rohit Sharma’s side was in uncharted territory and they didn’t survive.
Tom Hartley had been shred to pieces quite brutally by Yashasvi Jaiswal in India’s first innings, which was also the spinner’s first foray into Test cricket. This time, Hartley metted out the same treatment to Jaiswal and his teammates. He got rid of India’s top three inside the first 18 overs and then stopped a recovery from happening by dismissing Axar Patel in the 30th. Hartley had conceded 131 runs in 25 overs in the Indian first innings. He followed that up by getting the first four Indian wickets inside 30 overs of the second. And then Joe Root delivered the body blow that made the possibility of an Indian defeat the more likely outcome – he sent back the in-form KL Rahul three overs after Axar fell. Ravindra Jadeja and Shreyas Iyer soon followed suit before Ravichandran Ashwin and KS Bharat put up India’s best stand of the innings. The pair scored 57 runs off 130 balls in an attritional stand as they seemed bent on ensuring that the match goes into a fifth day at least. It was not to be though, this was England, Pope and Hartley’s day. Hartley first sent back Bharat with an unplayable delivery to complete his five-wicket haul and then a wild, fruitless heave from Ashwin made him the England spinner’s sixth victim. India’s last wicket pair was in and they decided to counter pressure with pressure. England opted for an extra half an hour with India needing just over 40 to win. Siraj swung at everything and ran tight singles and doubles with Bumrah to bring that deficit down to 28. However, Hartley had the last laugh, getting Siraj with the second ball of the last over of the day and England, incredibly, inexplicably, went 1-0 up.
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