So… good news and bad news.
The good news is, for the second time since 1980, four different English spinners took a wicket in a Test innings. The bad news is, well, the score.
India already boast a lead of 175 in a first innings that still has three wickets intact. But for the generosity of some of their dismissals, it could have been much greater. The first six batters all met their demise trying to find the fence, while Ravichandran Ashwin fell trying to find the other end. And yet even amid the mistakes, they have stitched together an enviable day two.
If the start to their innings was a blitz of haymakers administered by Yashasvi Jaiswal, the 87 overs on Friday comprised a succession of batters taking their turn to administer a series of jabs. England kept coming out from their corner, pressing down their bruises, spitting out blood, re-inserting their gumshield and going again.
England’s most damaging bump came last night. Jack Leach‘s left knee collided with the turf after chasing down one of the many Thursday-night strikes to the boundary. Further aggravation came this morning.
It meant Ben Stokes could not turn to his most trusted spinner for more than two overs in a morning session that began with Joe Root‘s dismissal of Jaiswal off the fourth ball of the day. Leach would eventually manage 16 overs split across six different spells, managing four in a row twice. Barring an optimistic caught-behind shout against KS Bharat when India were 45 ahead, there was decidedly less snap in his action.
Root, by far the pick of the bowlers, stepped up to shoulder as much of the burden as he could. Bharat’s misjudged sweep gave Root a second wicket, long after he had found Rahul’s edge two balls after removing Jaiswal. However, Ben Foakes had not reacted quick enough to take that catch – a tough half-chance that, like Leach’s knee, became more painful with each delivery.
But as pugnacious as those 24 overs were from England’s most full-time part-timer, including 16 on the bounce which coincided with the second new ball, managing the other end became an issue. Stokes’ solution was to cycle through his bowlers as often as possible. The shuffling was not without merit or reward. But at times – particularly during Jadeja-led stands of 65, 68 and 63 not out for the fifth, sixth and eighth wicket, respectively – it felt like switching over the batteries in an unresponsive remote control.
That’s not to say Tom Hartley and Rehan Ahmed were flat. There is nowhere to hide when an Indian side decides to string you along on days like these, but neither sought sanctuary. Not even Hartley, who arrived overnight with 63 runs already pilfered off him from nine overs, still nursing the ignominy of having his first ball in Test cricket struck over the fence by Jaiswal.
Leach had offered Hartley emotional support at the end of day one. “Jack was the one that got round him, and rightly so, he’s his bowling partner,” assistant coach Jeetan Patel revealed at stumps, before adding that the rest of the team had concentrated on Hartley’s six off Ashwin – the first of England’s innings, let alone his career. To Hartley’s credit, he then did his utmost to support Leach in return, with more of a share of the bowling duties than he might have envisaged on debut.
That positivity was apparent in Hartley’s maiden Test dismissal, when Shubman Gill swiped across the line to Ben Duckett at midwicket. And again when Rahul tossed a ninth Test hundred straight to Rehan out on the deep midwicket boundary.
Rehan was only returning the favour after Hartley had caught Shreyas Iyer even closer to the cow corner sponge for the legspinner’s eighth Test dismissal. The 19-year-old performed admirably enough, particularly in a spirited 10-over spell that housed the dismissal.
But for all of Hartley’s and Rehan’s pluck, and for all Patel’s insistence “they were really good” and “young and learning how to play Test cricket in India, against India”, they looked every bit like two young cricketers being asked to do too much too soon. The full-tosses and drag-downs that have allowed India a run rate 0.01 ahead of England’s 3.81, while expending far less energy, speak to that.
Hartley’s 25 overs are the sixth-most he has bowled across 33 red-ball innings, and the 131 runs are the most he has conceded. Only three times in his previous 13 first-class matches has Rehan sent down more than 23 overs, and the 105 scored against him has only been “bettered” once. And they both still have bowling to do.
For what it is worth, England as a group did not relent. The fields, as ever, were a buzz of encouragement and creativity. At various points, there were three catchers ringed from mid-off to cover point, three on the leg side in a straight line parallel to the pitch, and a simultaneous short leg and silly mid-off. For one ball, Jonny Bairstow dropped to his knees at second slip when Iyer came to the crease. It was a mix of strategy, impulse and hunches, even if at times it seemed like they were trying to concoct good fortune with the human equivalent of Feng Shui.
Outwardly, the messaging remains positive. “We have always spoken about how we will take wickets,” Patel said, as he reiterated extracts from the Bazball manifesto: “Runs don’t matter; the score doesn’t matter, and the only thing on the scoreboard that matters is how many wickets we’ve taken and how many we need to get.”
Well, even by those rules, England are up against it. And worst of all, two days into this five-match series, this feels like a sign of things to come.
The ethos of this team is reflected in their selections for this tour and, indeed, this match. The mistakes of previous England teams in India has been rooted in caution and uncertainty – two things of which you cannot accuse them.
But while history does not repeat itself, it does rhyme. And two days in, this has a familiar beat.