CHENNAI: WHEN rain forced early tea on the last day of the first Test in Leeds, Headlingley on Tuesday, England were 102 runs shy of yet another famous victory. Two back-to-back wickets in the 55th over bowled by Shardul Thakur might have acted as a roadblock in otherwise a smooth chase but even then they have an upper hand over their opponents as reliable Joe Root and skipper Ben Stokes were at the crease.
Openers Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett had already added 188-run stand by then with the latter slamming 149 off just 170 balls taking Indian bowlers to cleaners.
Even as others were unable to break the partnership, India's fifth bowling option Thakur was introduced in the 12th over of the day, 18th of the innings and soon taken off the attack after sending down only three overs. Agreed, he was going for almost run-a-ball then but another pacer Prasidh Krishna was equally expensive.
The Mumbai medium pacer was brought back only in the 53rd over, 31 overs after the captain decided to discontinue with him. Playing as a bowling-allrounder and probably preferred over Nitish Kumar Reddy for the match, the 33-year-old could bowl only six overs in the first innings even as four others including Jasprit Bumrah bowled 20 or more overs. The story was no different in the second essay.
England, in contrast, were more uniform as far as their usage of full-time bowlers was concerned. All five bowled 20 or more in the first innings and they went on to bowl 15 or more in the next essay with part-timer Joe Root chipping in with three overs. Offie Shoaib Bashir bowled the most overs in both the innings for them giving much-needed reprieve to the pace attack. Their opponents, meanwhile, adopted an entirely different approach as underbowling Thakur meant premier pacer Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj had to bowl the most.
Under utilisation of the fifth bowler can cause a big problem especially in the longest format of the game and India seem to have been doing it intentionally or unintentionally, especially under head coach Gautam Gambhir. The former India captain so far has used the fifth bowler only nine per cent away from home. It is around 17 per cent when India play at home. That apparent preference was there for all to see when Thakur was again taken off the attack only two overs later after giving India the twin successes.
Test cricket is all about plotting downfall of opponents ball after ball and chalking out strategies to control and dominate session after session. This sometimes can lead to surprising decisions by the captain and the coach but not utilising a player for the very purpose he is in the playing XI can affect the balance of the team to a great extent.
The same was the case in Leeds as the runs came out of English batters' willow at more than four-run per over making the target of 371 look easier even on the last day of the match.
It's true India had failed to defend sizeable targets in the recent past be it their losses in Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa in challenging batting conditions in 2022 or their defeat at the hands of England in Birmingham in the same year. The targets were 200 plus in the first two cases while it was 378 in the last.
Lack of support for Bumrah can be a reason for this fourth-innings reverses. While the bowling ace is always supposed to go for a few runs as he is expected to go for wickets every time he has the ball in his hand, at least one of the seamers has to play a role which Ishant Sharma used to do to almost perfection — contain run flow. That control seems to be missing be it Krishna or Siraj as they again went for a plenty of runs making life easy for England batters in the ongoing match.
Of course, one cannot ignore the change in conditions in England given the go-hung approach their team has adopted. The pitch has not been offering that assistance to the bowlers as it used to be in the past. Besides, the Dukes balls also generally go flat after around 30 overs making it difficult for the bowlers to get a purchase.
There could be plenty of reasons and India need to address them as soon as possible as a couple of losses can take them out of contention in no time once again making the tour an unforgettable one, which has been the case in Old Blighty since 2007.