A certain Murphy S. Law visited Rajkot for its debut Test, and spent rather more time around India’s bowlers and fielders than they would have liked
Alagappan Muthu10-Nov-20162:04
Ganguly: Saha’s poor keeping a one-off
Test cricket has been a long time coming to Rajkot and one of the visitors at the ground was a man called Murphy S. Law. He took an instant liking to the Indian team.So far, at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium, everything that could go wrong for Virat Kohli and his men, has gone wrong. Thursday was particularly brutal. They had to contain England; instead they conceded 19 fours and two sixes in the first . It was the equivalent of a village under attack taking the time to line up for their enemy and give them helpful little pointers. “There’s milk and cookies on the table as well, dears. If you want to clean us out, you’re going to need your strength.”An England line-up in which all eleven had first-class hundreds batted on the days when this pitch was at its best and put on 537. India have never won a Test at home while tackling such a big deficit. They were facing the impossible primarily because of how badly the morning had gone.The bowlers were in total freefall. There were substantial spells of play – like between the 110th and 120th overs, when the run-rate was over six – when it felt like they had hit rock bottom. That feeling was all the more acute because of how pleasantly for India the day had begun. India took the new ball straight away. Mohammed Shami had recovered from cramps. The field was brought up. Moeen Ali, on 99, was greeted with a bouncer.The next over, Umesh Yadav bowled one on the pads. Whacked. The next was short and wide. Whacked even harder. The fast bowler also had to stomach a perfectly good ball being clobbered away without any footwork from the batsman. From that moment on, England enjoyed a half hour where they found a boundary every over.Poor Umesh copped the worst of it because old Murphy S. Law just wouldn’t leave him alone. When he came back for a second spell, he induced Ben Stokes’ outside edge on 61 and then again on 62. Both times Wriddhiman Saha dropped the catch. The first one, perhaps, came at him a bit too quickly. The second, though, was a simpler chance and he would have taken it had he moved to his left before putting in the dive. He would have gained an extra yard of distance, not to mention a better foundation to then spring towards the ball. Saha, being one of the best wicketkeepers in the country, would know this. The way his head fell face first into the ground almost seemed like he wished he didn’t. Then he might have had an excuse.Although, would it have been accepted by a bowler who had created four clear chances? Umesh had drawn nicks from Alastair Cook and Haseeb Hameed the previous morning. They had been for nothing too. He could have saved India more than a hundred runs. He might have entertained chances of becoming the first bowler to take a Test five-for in Rajkot. Instead, he finished with 2 for 112, and Stokes turned his first Test run against India into a match-defining hundred.There were 139 runs in 30 overs before lunch. That got England to 450 far quicker than even they might have hoped.1:48
‘Onus on everyone to pick up wickets’ – Jadeja
Playing catch up in Test cricket is never fun. It requires a team that had been beaten badly to return to their best overnight and maintain those levels for insanely long durations. It’s a little like missing the only bus and having to run behind it whilst it zips through an empty road. You have to first keep up with it for however long it takes until a little bit of luck comes along. A red light, perhaps.India managed to get close enough a couple of times but just as the light turned red – Stokes’ chances – they tripped over their own feet and fell splat on the ground.At this point, you need miracles. Like R Ashwin conjuring wickets out of thin air. A square turning offbreak. A sneaky straighter one. A little too much dip. Something. Anything. He has done it for India so many times but Stokes wouldn’t let it happen here. He scored 39 runs off 58 balls using 19 scoring shots, five of which were boundaries. Ashwin suffered through 46 overs – the last time he bowled that many was in Delhi against South Africa trying to break through their stone wall – and gave away 167 runs – the last time he was that expensive was in 2012, coincidentally against England again. Looked like Murphy S Law had taken a shine to someone else in the Indian camp.Then he went after the big one. Since taking over the Test captaincy, Kohli has almost always found himself in a position to boss the game. Briefly, in Jamaica, he was forced to bang his head into a wall, but India were already 1-0 up against arguably a weaker opposition. In Rajkot, he was forced to concentrate on not going 1-0 down.Kohli had to set defensive fields, then watch Stokes pierce them. He gave one of his best bowlers, Ravindra Jadeja, only one over in the morning, persisting instead with Amit Mishra, who was conceding runs at more than four per over, in the desperate hope that wrist spin could get more out of the surface. He went haring back from midwicket only for the swirling ball to just about evade his dive. When he looked up, he saw M Vijay, who had run in from long-on, making the valid point that it was his catch. Guess who the batsman was. Here’s a clue. He has red hair, bats left-handed and hits the ball really, really hard.”This has been happening in cricket for years,” Jadeja said as explanation for the missed chances. “The batsman who is dropped often goes on to get a century. Ben Stokes was missed two or three times. Two or three fell in no man’s land. That’s a part of the game.”He also tipped his hat to Mr Murphy S Law’s biggest contribution in Rajkot. “The toss took the game away,” Jadeja said. “Everybody knows the Rajkot pitch is good to bat on for the first two or three days, and then the spinners come into play. What is on the board we have to match somehow.”M Vijay and Gautam Gambhir had taken to that task well enough. But though England couldn’t take any wickets, they were able to find reverse swing as early as the 15th over and the help their spinners got off the pitch was but a sign of things to come. India’s batsmen are going to be severely tested, right Murph?