The five-Test series between India and England concluded with the home side winning 4-1. It wasn’t a surprising result, but one that wouldn’t have been foreseen following the visitors’ surprise win in the first Test.
The Indian team was depleted during the entire series, with Virat Kohli taking a long paternal leave and Mohammed Shami out with injury. The home team’s troubles compounded with KL Rahul too getting injured after the second Test and Ravindra Jadeja missing the second Test too.
Yet, the English team kept missing opportunities to put India under pressure and ended the tour with a miserable performance in the final game at Dharamsala.
What led to England’s Massive Downfall?
Looking back, most people will look at the heavy inexperience of the English spin attack as the primary reason for their loss. However, on closer inspection, the biggest flaw in England’s efforts was the utter drought of runs from their middle order.
While Zak Crawley proved to be the most consistent batsman for his team on this tour, his opening partner Ben Duckett also scored a memorable hundred. Together, the two openers gave their team several good starts. But in a pattern that became very familiar, the English middle order proved to be a complete failure.
To quantify the travails of the English middle order, let’s look at some numbers.
Ollie Pope played a stunning knock in the second innings of the first Test to set up an incredible comeback win for is team. However, what followed was a complete drought from the England team’s No. 3 batter.
In the remaining four Tests and eight innings, Pope managed just 118 runs at an average of 14.75. This included a ‘pair’ in the fourth Test off just three balls across the two innings.
Joe Root Falls Short
At No. 4 bats England’s best batsman, Joe Root. While he scored a brilliant hundred in the first innings of the fourth Test and showed his class again with a half-century in the disastrous last innings of the series, he had a lean spell otherwise.
If we ignore the first Test and put aside his hundred in the fourth Test’s first innings, Root scored 167 runs in seven innings, at an average of 23.85.
It was Root’s attempted reverse scoop in the third Test’s first innings that came to symbolize England’s reckless approach while batting. That shot also proved somewhat decisive in the context of the series as India were a bowler down at the time and England were 224/2 in response to India’s 445.
A more measured approach from England’s premier batsman could have led to a bigger partnership and England conceding a smaller first-innings lead, or even getting one themselves. Still, Root learned from his mistake and made amends with a brilliant hundred in the very next game.
Other Failures
The same is not the case for Jonny Bairstow. The man who played his 100th Test in the final game at Dharamsala didn’t get to 50 even once in his 10 innings of the series. He scored 238 runs in the entire series at an average of 23.8.
England captain Ben Stokes did reach the half-century mark once, in the very first innings of the series. However, what followed were several starts-not-converted and downright failures.
Stokes scored 199 runs in the entire series, at an average of 19.9. This was a horrible run of scores for him because he was playing as a batsman and not an all-rounder.
Going further down the order, we come to the wicketkeeper-batsman Ben Foakes. He cannot be judged on the same parameters because he has a full-time job behind the stumps too. Still, in modern-day cricket, wicketkeepers too have to contribute with the bat. Foakes didn’t do enough.
He was part of some key partnerships, like the one with Pope in the second innings of the first Test and another, with Root, in the first innings of the fourth match. However, in all, he just managed 205 runs, at an average of 20.5, in the entire series.
England let down by their middle-order
So, there it is, the English batting order, from No. 3 to No. 7. Put aside the one century each from Ollie Pope and Joe Root and it was utter misery. In a five-Test series, a team needs more than one of their batsmen to go big, and score more than 400 runs, at least. England didn’t have that.
Zak Crawley was the most successful batter for the tourists, with 407 runs. His partner Duckett was his team’s second most prolific scorer, with 343 runs. The rest simply didn’t rise to the occasion. This was the primary cause of England’s downfall in the series.