India v England, 1st Test, Chennai
December 15th 2008 15:21
First Innings - England - a summary
More than anything else this first innings from England has reflected the state of mind of the visiting team. They are not sure what approach they want to take against the home team's probing attack. The openers consolidated and were watchful - at times more than necessary. With the introduction of Mishra, the left handers started rejoicing.
Mishra's strong aversion to flighting the ball wide of the offstump of the left hander to try and rip one back into the stumps meant that any left hander worth his salt could sweep Mishra to distraction or worse. It is another matter that he returned late in the day to pick up Strauss's wicket - it was the batsman's mistake although the spinner must be commended for keeping the ball up rather than dropping it short.
The feeling I get with Mishra is that he is prone to get wickets more with his top spinner and googly than with his leg spinner. In light of this, Ravi Shastri's comment that Mishra as a spinner was 'in the Shane Warne mould' was eminently laughable. His right arm is too close to his ear and he bends over to the left so much that it is his natural angle that gets the ball to come in in the air and not the drift per se. That nullifies one big advantage that wrist spinners have against both right and left handers - drift which can defeat batsmen in the air. Also when he bowls his leg spinners which ought to be his stock ball, due to the position of his body at the point of release and his action, the spin is not really ripping. More than anything else it slows down after pitching. I suspect that it is because he tends to impart more overspin and backspin than sidespin when delivering his leg spinner. All these problems are highlighted even more clearly when Mishra comes around the wicket to bowl to right or left handers.
As long as he takes wickets none of these deficiencies are going to be brought out by the experts of course. Of course it does not matter with what deliveries he gets his wickets as long as he gets them. I feel that addressing these issues would make him a more complete bowler.
With the new ball, India were probing without being distinctly threatening. Ishant and Zaheer complement each other in so many ways. One is crafty and is always probing for that weakness, that chink in the batsman's armour. The other just pounds in and hits the opposition's armour all day. Eventually there comes a time when the batsman is vulnerable to both the bowlers! Yesterday though, both the English batsmen were not of a mind to take any risks and the Chennai wicket was flat enough that this approach in itself was enough to keep their wickets safe.
It was an indiscretion from Cook which saw the fall of the first wicket and from thereon England lost sight mainly because they did not follow the sterling example set by their opening batsmen. Caution more than anything else would fetch rewards on this wicket. And once you are settled improvisation can come more naturally. Bell and Pietersen did not realize that. Ian Bell has developed into a far more attacking batsmen and now fancies an attacking shot to almost all balls. It is that more than anything else which saw him playing all over a Zaheer inswinger to be caught dead in front of the wicket. He would do well to rediscover his defensive game and bring it up for Test matches at the very least. Pietersen's was a scratchy innings and his dismissal reinforced it. He was taken by surprise by a Zaheer bouncer but he still tried to play a shot and perished as a result. In no time, England, which was on 161 for 1 was reduced to 3 wickets down for little more than that score. This brought in Collingwood who is in a rut. After scratching around to score 9, he got a shocker of a decision from Bowden. There was a whole pad between bat and ball and yet he was ruled caught at short leg off Harbhajan. Very unlucky. But as David Lloyd said it is in these sort of rough times that bad decisions tend to dog you.
Flintoff and later Andersen (after the fall of Strauss to Mishra's top spinner) steadied the ship somewhat and helped England through to the end of the day. But most definitely England had not done justice to the fact that they had won the toss on this wicket.
Today again it has been India for the most part until the last hour which has seen Andersen and Prior blossom against India's spinners. Earlier on Mishra again got the breakthrough by getting Flintoff caught at short leg. It was a regular leg spinner which was played with the full face of the bat towards the leg side. Gambhir's anticipation is what converted that into a wicket. That was a huge blow for England. India would have thought that they could easily wrap the England innings up below 300. But Prior and Andersen combined stout defense with stodgy placements and awkward bumps and nudges to put on a nice little partnership.
Just when things were starting to look a bit more serious, Mishra struck once more. Throughout this innings he has looked more threatening with his top spinners and googlies than with his leg spinners. He decided to accentuate this by bowling around the wicket. Andersen lost patience after a while spent missing all of Mishra's googlies. He tried sweeping an attempted leg spinner that did not really spin and holed out to Yuvraj at deep square leg. Mishra, it is at the moment who is briniging on all the breakthroughs. A wrist spinner often does it. Even moderately good balls bowled by a wrist spinner can get wickets - such is the mystery associated.
And now Swann joins Prior. This is England's best bet to get to somewhere near 350. On the other hand, India have not yet taken the new ball and the ball is easily over a 100 overs old. They are going to have to take that new ball soon and they are probably looking to take the new ball after picking Prior up. It is upto England to see that they take the new ball up without letting another wicket fall. Right now India is well in front in this Test match and if they get England for under 350 they would fancy their chances even more.
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