CricDigs Blogs

This sort of a thought might seem a bit too imaginative but the fact is that there is a definite pattern in the way the England team has played against the Indians. On Day One, the English batsmen were so defensive that they seldom tried to challenge the Indian bowlers. Most of their batsmen tried to remain pre-determined just not to get out and scoring seemed like a secondary affair. This was something that the Indians aren’t used to. In almost every test series at home, including the last one against Australia they have had the opposing team trying to score against them and take chances. This in no way means that the Indians didn’t bowl well on the first day — Zaheer was in fact simply superb, but the fact is that the pace of the game didn’t really suit the Indian temperament.

Bhajji got frustrated while bowling as the English batsmen just didn’t try and manoeuvre his bowling. Even at the press conference, he openly said that the English tactics were too defensive and were bordering on negativity. Day Two — well, the scenario still didn’t change much. The Indian batsmen just weren’t allowed to drive the ball on the up, something that the whole of the top order loves to do. Gambhir, Sehewag and Dravid all seemed a bit bored by the English bowlers bowling outside the off-stump, quite short, not giving much scoring opportunities to the Indian batsmen. The dismissal mode of our top five batsmen suggested one trend — not one of them got out to really good or wicket-taking ball.

Nearly every batsman looked like getting out to casual shots. Now this casual shot selection could be a matter of lapse of concentration or just that the lack of scoring opportunities and the speed at which the game was being played had made them a bit irritated.