Scores 148* as visitors turn first-innings deficit of 190 into a lead of 126 with four wickets in hand
Sidharth Monga27-Jan-2024When the day began, we wondered if there would be a day four in the Hyderabad Test. Then Bazball arrived.After England lost four of their first five wickets in the first innings to defensive shots, you could almost imagine their coach, after whom Bazball is named, telling them it is more acceptable to get out reverse-sweeping than defending. That commitment to the sweep of various varieties brought India face to face with Bazball properly for the first time. England claimed the honours on the third day in Hyderabad, converting a first-innings deficit of 190 into a lead of 126 with four wickets in hand.Ollie Pope’s unbeaten 148 was the biggest turnaround from the first innings during which he meekly followed the turn with his hands and edged to slip. In the second innings, he swept and reverse-swept with aplomb to mess around with the spinners’ lines and lengths and capitalise on the enterprising start provided by Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett. He was rewarded with a first century in India, the highest second-innings score by a visiting batter in India since Alastair Cook’s 175 in Ahmedabad 12 years ago.All told, England scored 79 runs with variants of the sweep without losing a wicket to it. Pope alone scored 41 of those runs, pulling the shot off almost every time a spinner troubled him. Consequently England became the first team since Nagpur 2012-13 to score 300 against India in a second innings in India.India will be thankful you can’t reverse-sweep Jasprit Bumrah. For it could have been worse for the hosts without a rousing spell of reverse-swing bowling just after lunch during which he got rid of Duckett and Joe Root. The pitch offered only slow turn, and England kept nailing high-risk options, but the spinners will still be disappointed that Bumrah was the pick of the bowlers on a day-three surface with figures of 12-3-29-2. R Ashwin went at 4.42 an over for his two wickets, and Axar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja at 4.60 and 3.88 for one each.Jasprit Bumrah sent back Ben Duckett and Joe Root during a fiery spell of reverse-swing•BCCI
For all the talk of Bazball and the excellent start England managed against pace in the first innings, what had stood out was their top three falling to traditional dismissals. All three were caught playing defensively in front of their body, which leaves you at the mercy of the turn, whose degree you cannot predict with any certainty.Having taken the last three Indian wickets for 15 – led again by Joe Root the offspinner – England played what they practised. Not immediately, though. In his first two overs with the new ball, Ashwin could have had both Duckett and Crawley, but the inside edges fell either side of short leg. That was enough to shake them up. No more, they said.Crawley began with the reverse-sweep against Ashwin before taking Axar downtown. All the sweeping played on Ashwin’s lengths. In order to stay one step ahead, he overpitched far more than usual, and it was only when he went back to a proper length that he drew a forward defensive from Crawley. The ball didn’t turn, and the edge went to slip. By then, though, England had put 45 on the board.Duckett and Pope kept sweeping and reversing India to distraction. That a lot of practice has gone into the sweeps was plain to see. Like Ben Stokes in the first innings, they kept almost switching their stance without changing their grip, which allowed them to play the reverse-sweep powerfully and in front of square.Post-lunch Bumrah began reversing the ball, but was let done by a non-review of a close lbw shout against Duckett. He bowled him top of off after highly skilful bowling across two overs, but England had hit four boundaries in that time. Still, when Bumrah trapped Root in front, India had 73 runs in the bag.Jonny Bairstow was bowled shouldering arms to Ravindra Jadeja•BCCI
Jonny Bairstow proceeded to thwart Bumrah by staying leg-side of the ball to avoid lbw, reacting late if he bowled the outswinger, and picking the slower ones. When it began to look threatening for India, the natural variation from the pitch came to their aid. Jadeja turned one past his outside edge, and the next ball, nearly identical, went straight on to dislodge the off bail as Bairstow left it alone.Then followed about the only period when England allowed the spinners to work on a dismissal. Ashwin craftily pushed Stokes back and dragged him out with his changes of length until he had him playing back to a full ball, which turned past the bat to bowl him. With 27 runs still in the bag, India would have smelled the win here, especially as Pope and Ben Foakes were forced to play defensively.There came a period of 70 balls without a boundary for England as Foakes played more traditionally, and Pope was kept quiet. After tea, though, the floodgates opened again as India began the session, unimpressively so, with Jadeja and Axar. Not for the first time in his short tenure as captain, Rohit Sharma has begun a session with the bowlers who had till then looked the least likely to take a wicket.In the final session, Pope was even more emphatic with his reverse-sweeping, on one occasion even reverse-Dilscooping Jadeja over the keeper’s head. In between he gave the charge once in a while but the backbone of his innings was the sweeping and the reverse-sweeping. By them time he made a mistake with the reverse, he had already scored 110, and even then he was dropped by Axar at backward point.Axar came back to take Foakes’ wicket with one that stayed low, but that was the extent of inroads India would make. At stumps on day three, the new ball was three overs away, which would give India hope. There is every chance that on a pitch with slow turn, and given their spin attack, England might not stretch their lead far enough for this Test but this turnaround could still have implications for the series.