IND vs ENG 2nd Test: How India tripped Bazball as it sprinted to the finish line

It came down to a boxing bout, of sorts. England had landed a few Bazball-blows to leave India staggering and the 332-run target was shrinking rapidly. For most part of the first session on Day 4, along with the bat-ball contest, it was mind games that delighted those who value the ebbs the flow of Test cricket. At one point it seemed the decibel level at Vizag was dangerously dropping. The Indians were getting nervous.

Jasprit Bumrah was seen off, Axar Patel was sawn off, and with India reluctant to turn to Kuldeep Yadav, it was up to R Ashwin, who was wicketless in the first innings and had his reputation dented a bit in the first Test.

Usually restlessly tentative at the start where he desperately tries to feel bat on ball, first Test hero Ollie Pope was motoring along. Ashwin had chosen his angle of attack the same as in the first Test: from round the stumps. But this time, his over-spun deliveries were extracting more bounce off the Vizag track.

Rohit Sharma is one happy captain after #TeamIndia levelled the series 1⃣-1⃣ in Vizag! 👏 👏#INDvENG | @ImRo45 | @IDFCFIRSTBank pic.twitter.com/Ogf5yY1MaD

— BCCI (@BCCI) February 5, 2024

Around him Indian desperation lay in the air. Deep-set fields, a wincing Rohit Sharma, a frowning Rahul Dravid framed this gloom. It was then Ashwin broke through with a ball that not only drifted away with the angle but bounced on Pope, who was hellbent on cutting it but couldn’t ride the bounce. The ball flew to the left of first slip where Rohit pulled off a reflex gem that would have made the great slip fielder Mark Waugh purr in delight. Such was the ferocity in the ball, that he couldn’t even cup both his palms together but the ball had stuck in the left.

What will England do now? Joe Root stopped Pope near the boundary line; it wasn’t just a punch of gloves and ‘good luck mate’ chat but a pretty earnest chat. Root reverse-swept his first ball and the camera zoomed in on Ashwin: did he look taken aback or was it the realisation that it was game-face on time again.

Root would step down, drive, and was almost over-the-top with his aggression. But he was connecting with everything. Unlike in Hyderabad, Ashwin started to slow things down here; more appreciable air, lesser speeds, and with just a few short of 500 wickets was throwing himself into the battle. As Root charged again, Ashwin ripped a combo in: slower, flightier, and away-drifter.

All three elements seemed to have done their bit in Root’s downfall. Such was the all-out-attack mood he was in that there was no way he was going to pull out and tap it away – as he would later do on his way back to the hutch. Live, he went for the spectacular across-the-line heave, and to no one’s surprise it went nowhere but into Indian palms to leave England on 154 for 5.

Cricket – Second Test – India v England – Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium, Visakhapatnam, India – February 5, 2024 India’s Rohit Sharma shakes hands with England’s Ben Stokes after the match. (REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas)

Bazball was now under a cloud. The plan to take out the leading spinner had fallen short. But England did what they do best: regroup and rally. Zak Crawley and Jonny Bairstow kept at it, peeling off the over-the-top ness but remaining confident. Bumrah tried to catch Bairstow in the way he did in the first innings with a length ball shaping away outside off. The response was two crisp fours that rebounded off advertising hoardings at cover and point. Crawley stood at the off-stump line, leaving stuff he didn’t want to deal in, and using his tall reach to imperiously drive anything in his reach.

Enter Kuldeep Yadav, late into the fray but the latest to drive a knife through Bazball. Fresh from a confident outing in the first innings, he got a ball to skid on from the leg and middle line. An alarmed Crawley abandoned his front-foot play and tried to rush back. Mistake. Out of position, he flailed at it across the line and got rammed on the pad. The umpire felt it was missing leg, even Rohit seemed to think so but Kuldeep the man from Kanpur was clear about the traffic in the bylane ahead and implored his captain to take DRS. The decision confirmed his hope and suspicion and Crawley had to go. 194 for 5 but Bairstow was joined by Ben Stokes.

However, Bumrah would leave Stokes bereft of his partner just two runs later with a screamer in the 44th over. The shiny side was outside, but this back-of-length ball tailed in sharply to startle Bairstow whose weak prod wasn’t going to stop this from slamming into his pad. He took the DRS but no luck; England would hit tea break at 196 for 6.

The last session threw the most puzzling visual of the day. The Pirate of England’s adventurous ship Ben Stokes in a daze, jogging in a garden to borrow a line from Rohit Sharma about his fielders the other day. Shreyas Iyer, whose best contribution in the game was to urge Shubman Gill to take a DRS when for all money Gill seemed trapped lbw in front in the second innings, rushed to his right, grabbed the ball, and had a sideways dart at the stumps to find an ambling Stokes just short of the crease. Iyer would show with his index finger how short the margins were – Stokes would have known then it would be the margin of defeat too.

But this is England, even with their captain abandoning them in a brain fade, Tom Hartley, who with his all-round ability has shown his admirable fighting qualities to the Indian audience, and Ben Foakes added 55 runs to reach 275 for 7 when Bumrah intervened. Again.

Sensing Foakes was all hard hands, he slipped in a slower one, grabbed the startled return offering, and threw it up in delight. What remained was the Ashwin watch – would he get to his 500th Test wicket or not – but it would be Bumrah who fittingly sealed the win by knocking out Hartley’s off stump.

The margin of victory – 106 runs, may not reveal the entire picture, but it is safe to say India have managed to weather a storm here in Visakhapatnam, a city used to witnessing cyclonic storms.

• IND vs ENG: Bumrah stops Bazball. For now.
• India vs England Live Score, 2nd Test Day 4
• Xavi’s return to Barcelona as manager was written in the stars, but it was too good to last

“Being 2-0 up would be great for us, but that’s the great thing about a five match series. It’s the end of the series where everything counts. We’re very level headed … in the changing room we’re still very upbeat about some of the great stuff we’ve managed to do albeit not getting the result we wanted,” Stokes said.

Rahul Dravid also spoke about India knowing the intensity of the battle they are in against England. 10 restless days of break will only increase the tension as the two teams regather in Rajkot to continue the most entertaining blockbuster show currently on in Test cricket.

Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.