“If the ifs and buts were pots and pans, there’d be no work for tinkers’ hands”. One heard this profound comment for the first time from Navjot Singh Sidhu on commentary over two decades ago. The statement, which raised a few laughs then, continues to be relevant today – when the very same cricketing pundits across multiple mediums bring it up after every Indian loss in a cricket match. The ifs and buts bear the brunt of their criticisms.
The overall expectations set for the ongoing India-England Test series for the Tendulkar-Anderson trophy have suddenly vanished. The retirement of two top batsmen – Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma and India’s top spinner Ravichandran Ashwin – were ample reasons the experts proffered to reduce our expectations. But, one loss and one win later, the very same experts changed the narrative. Who needs Kohli when Shubman Gill can? Why bother about Rohit when Rahul is more than capable? As for Ashwin, why even consider spin when pace bowlers can take 17 wickets?
Of course, one is not attempting to paint the whole cricket commentators black. There is no way one can do so as these are all players of some repute. They faced the world’s fastest bowlers without helmets or driving away a top-end car as a player-of-the-tournament. One coached a team to its first IPL title in the 18th year of their existence, while another is the highest Indian wicket taker in Test matches. They all have opinions – the very same ifs and buts that we spoke of earlier.
Now, let us look at some facts – India won more sessions in each of the three Tests played. At Headingly we had five centurions; at Edgbaston we had a double centurion and a bowler with a ten-wicket haul and at the Lord’s, our opener got a century and top bowler got five wickets – two more players on the famous leaderboard at the “Home of Cricket”. With these stats, there could be no reason for India losing two of the Tests. And yet, they did. Why? Simply because in each of these instances they lost key moments. Take a look at the three moments that I feel contributed to India coming out second best:
- At Headingly, India lost seven for 41 runs in the first innings. But the more enlightening fact is that they had scored 359 runs for three on Day-1. In the second innings, they did an encore by losing six wickets for thirty-plus runs.
- At Edgbaston, India was down five down for 211 runs, but the rest contributed a mighty 376 runs to shut England out of the game. They gave Ben Stokes the option of playing out a draw – not an option in the current Bazball era of English cricket.
- At the Lord’s it was the Englishmen who took a leaf out of India’s book and added 215 runs for the last six wickets with tailender Brydon Carse ending up the second highest scorer with 56 runs after Joe Root’s century.
At Headingly, captain Shubman Gill and his deputy Rishabh Pant were well placed to annihilate the English bowling, but fell to shots that could only be described as a lapse in concentration. One could be charitable and blame it on inexperience around taking responsibility – remember we had the likes of Cheteshwar Pujara who could bore the pants off bowlers!
At Edgbaston, captain Gill proved that he had learnt his lessons and ground the English bowlers to dust. In doing so, he was ably supported by all-rounders Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sunder, with whom Gill added over a ton of runs each. India won the match at this precise moment, as England barely crossed the follow-on point by 20 runs – not that Gill would have imposed it, given the workload management of his bowlers.
At Lord’s, there were two game-changing moments. The first when captain Gill let the game slip after getting England seven down for 271 runs. The last three batters added 116 runs. The second was when Pant and K L Rahul got out after setting up a solid partnership. Pant was runout trying to get his partner to a century and Rahul chased a ball on 7th stump. Once again, a lapse in concentration.
In each of these instances, it wasn’t the bowlers who got Indian batsmen out. It was just that tiny moment of a faltering concentration that caused their downfall. Now, my question to our cricket experts is: Did they not experience such lapses of concentration? Didn’t bowlers also face brain fades when a batsman started targeted them? Remember, both the two sides are playing the game to win, so can’t we cut our players some slack?
Maybe they do. But thanks to the headline hungry media, we have experts of all kinds blaming everyone from the players, the captain, the coach and the selection panel for losing the Lord’s Test. They claim India were in the driver’s seat. But where they? This English team can out-bat every other cricket team if given a chance. All that our batters need to do in the remaining two test matches is to not give them any. Especially if they are batting on a 100-plus.
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