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Ishant Sharma blows England away to give India victory in second Test Ishant Sharma blows England away to give India victory in second Test
(about 17 hours later)
England collapsed to a 95-run defeat at Lord’s, to concede a 1-0 series lead and pile ever more pressure on their captain Alastair Cook. England lost the second Test by 95 runs shortly after the drinks break in the afternoon session of the final day, hoist with their own petard on a pitch prepared to suit themselves, and sometimes those watching events unfold can do no more than shake their heads and stare blankly. “It is not the despair,” said John Cleese in Clockwise. “I can take the despair, it is the hope I can’t stand.”
The hosts lost their last six wickets for 50 runs – an implosion Cook in particular could ill afford as the admirable earlier work of Joe Root (66) and Moeen Ali (39) was squandered once Ishant Sharma (seven for 74) resorted to the short ball. With one final ball of the first session remaining, hope sprang eternal for England of pulling off a win, as Joe Root and Moeen Ali extended their fifth-wicket partnership to 101. Seventy-five deliveries later, after Ravindra Jadeja, inevitably it seemed, had run out James Anderson, it was all over, the last six wickets falling for 50 runs.
Root and Moeen raised expectations of an unlikely assault on England’s second-highest run chase, with a century stand for the fifth wicket, but those fanciful notions came crashing down in a flurry of mis-pulls. India’s celebrations, justified as they outplayed England in their backyard, will be long and hard. For England, even the despair is becoming pretty hard to take now. It was simply mind-numbing. It was India’s first win abroad in 17 attempts, and only their second at Lord’s.
Moeen was first to go, not to a pull but a gloved catch to short-leg from the final ball before lunch. England’s descent became swiftly terminal when Root followed Matt Prior and Ben Stokes back in a Sharma spell of four wickets for nine runs in the early afternoon. As the wickets tumbled in the afternoon, Alastair Cook sat on the dressing room balcony, impassive behind his shades but surely churning inside, knowing that the questions that have been asked are not going to disappear. His position as captain is under increasing scrutiny as is his role as opening batsman. How much more can he take? So strong has been the investment in him as captain that there is no chance in the short term that he will be removed from his position, so any initiative would come from him. That seems equally unlikely and he spoke defiantly, unusually emotionally in fact, after the match of his desire to continue: stubbornness is not least among the traits that has made him an opening batsman of world class.
The optimism of 173 for four therefore dissolved horribly to 223 all out, in pursuit of 319. It is certainly true that his leadership comes under less scrutiny when he has scored runs and it really does look as if he is starting to move better into the ball. Whether the team can support him while he rediscovers the relentless run-scoring of old is another matter. Maybe it would help if the responsibility of captaincy was lifted from him and Ian Bell given the job until the end of the series, so that Cook could start afresh in the Caribbean in April, in England’s next Test series. Even then, it is reasonable to point out that the support Cook has received in terms of performance from his senior players on whom he was relying when the side was first selected for the Sri Lanka series has been poor across the board.
It surely cannot be right, though, for the captain to quit after two Tests of a five-Test series with the side a match down: what is it about a quitter never winning? Whatever Cook chooses to do, or is chosen for him, there will be changes for the third Test. Matt Prior has probably played his last match for England now after a distinguished career and should give way to Jos Buttler, while Stuart Broad could also miss out, his lack of form and the condition of his knee surely interlinked. Chris Woakes, who must have come close to playing at Lord’s, would replace him.
India were driven to their win by an inspired spell of pace bowling from Ishant Sharma, who pounded in from the Pavilion End, hair flopping, and bludgeoned figures of 7 for 74, five of them for 24 runs and the last four for nine runs in 21 balls. He has never produced finer figures in a Test match and nor has any Indian bowler in this country. Although the second new ball became available, India did not require it.
There are times when it looks as if the game is being played in a parallel universe on Planet Numpty. So calmly had Root and Moeen batted that, with the lunch interval approaching, MS Dhoni and his side may well have been wondering whether some of the grand predictions from followers on the fourth evening had not been a touch premature. Then came one of those pre-lunch suck-it-and-see decisions that usually involve giving a spinner a single over. Dhoni had brought Sharma on and immediately Root clambered in, taking 14 from the over.
So Dhoni set fielders, three of them, on the legside boundary, stuck in two short-legs, one forward and one back and asked Sharma to thrash the tired old ball into the middle of the pitch. It was not a massively cerebral bit of cricket thinking but England’s complicity made him seem like Alexander the Great. The last ball of the morning was directed at Moeen’s rib cage and, had he relied on his natural instinct, he would simply have wafted it away. Instead, in his mind, the situation demanded that he restrained himself and, caught in two minds, he just ducked awkwardly, took his eye off the ball and it popped gently from his glove into the hands of forward short-leg.
Sharma deserves all credit for what happened after the interval, for it was a wonderful effort, but this was cricket’s equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel. The more he thrashed the ball into the pitch, the more England responded and the more he did it. It certainly defies belief to think that England discussed this in the interval and decided this was the way to go, not least because Root was playing superbly for his 66 and needed support.
It began with Matt Prior who, finding nothing in his half from either end, decided to take the short-pitched barrage on rather than ignore it until it went away. Finally and inevitably, in what may well be his last act as an England player, he hit one straight to deep midwicket.
Next came Ben Stokes, devoid of a single run in his last three England innings and no better off as he swatted and skied to mid-on. Even Root succumbed. He had been struck on the thumb earlier, the one he broke in the Caribbean, and may have found defending difficult: he, too, found one of the deep fielders. Broad was taken down the legside by Dhoni, fending off yet another short ball. India have asked England to register for gift aid.