India favourites in home Test series, but don’t scoff at Bazball

 

Since the last time an England team won a Test series on Indian soil, in December 2012, the home team has lost just three matches. That is three Test match defeats in over 11 years, a time during which India have won 16 consecutive series to underline why winning in India is the toughest place in Test cricket.

Now, back to those three losses: in February 2017 to Australia in Pune, in February 2021 to England in Chennai and to Australia in 2023 at Indore. Of those three defeats, just the one to England – by 227 runs – came on a featherbed. Pune in 2017 and Indore last year were Test matches that were finished inside three days on raging turners deemed ‘poor’ by the ICC initially, with the Indore surface rating then changed to ‘below average’.

Of course, the introduction of the World Test Championship has put a premium on accumulating points and so we understand why India have been more reliant on spinning tracks. They know the risks of playing on pitches that turn from the first session of a Test match, but they also have Ravichandran Ashwin (490 Test wickets), Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel, with Kuldeep Yadav in the wings which gives them the belief that slow and low surfaces are the way to go.

But they come with a risk, as we saw in 2017 and 2023, because touring teams with unknown spinners can cause an upset, as Steve O’Keefe did in 2017 with 12 wickets in Pune and Todd Murphy and Matthew Kuhnemann did in 2023. And with such risks, the batting averages of most Indian batsmen, except Rohit Sharma, have dipped.

Rohit averages 58.71 from 22 home Test innings during the WTC’s existence since 2019, and no team-mates comes close to his five centuries during this time. The India captain has been dismissed 12 times by visiting spinners in those 22 innings. Since the WTC started, Kohli averages 49.47 at home across 23 Test innings as compared to an average of 60.05 from 77 previous innings in India before the tournament started. In those 23 WTC innings at home, Kohli has been dismissed by visiting spinners 15 times.

Kohli has withdrawn himself for the first two Tests against England, which deprives India of their most experienced player, a talismanic figure capable of lifting the mood on the field and a man who, despite that dipping batting average, can turn matches on his own. No Kohli for the Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam games means that India, irrespective of how the pitches play, have to play another batsman.

Shreyas Iyer’s average of 39.09 from in home Tests during the WTC cycle comes in as third best for India, with eight of his 11 dismissals being to spin. Shubman Gill averages 32.07 at home during the WTC, and has fallen to spin six times out of 14. KL Rahul has played just two home Tests during the WTC and averages 12.66, and each time fell to an Australian spinner. KS Bharat, the senior specialist wicketkeeper in the squad, has played only four Tests at home – all during last year’s series with Australia – with a best of 44 and was dismissed by spin all five times.

Clear problems, but that is the accepted risk that the team management wants to take, given the spinning strength it possesses, and so we can assume that these five Tests between India and England will throw up a few more sharply spinning tracks.

Which will, make no mistake, bring England’s varied spin attack into play. Jack Leach is no Nathan Lyon, but he has heaps of experience and is a left-armer, a variety known to cause Indian batsmen problems. Rehan Ahmed, capped just once at Test level, is a legspinner and then there are the unknown factors, the 1.93m pair of Tom Hartley, 24, and Shoaib Bashir, 20, who has just 10 first-class wickets to his name. Murphy had played 10 first-class matches when he landed in India last year, and after this first Test series had Virat Kohli’s wicket four times. Kuhnemann, who debuted after his rookie team-mate, claimed Kohli and Rohit twice each. And let’s not forget England can turn to Joe Root, who has 81 first-class wickets including a ridiculous haul of 5/8 in a Test match in India.

This is not to say that Leach, Ahmed, Hartley, Bashir and Root will give India as much trouble as Lyon, Murphy and Kuhnemann did last year, but there is potential for an upset or two.

Which brings us to this Bazball concept. So far, it has been almost entirely proportionate to the nature of the surfaces England have played Test cricket on. This was most noticeable when the team toured Pakistan in December 2022 and won 3-0 on flat tracks, and during last summer’s Ashes where the tracks were decidedly batting-friendly – most startling at Edgbaston – and saw the historic urn retained by Australia courtesy a 2-2 series result. The only exception was the home with South Africa in 2022 – which was won 2-1 after England lost the opening Test – where the pitches were not as widely conducive to batting as seen in all other home fixtures.

For Bazball to succeed in India, Stokes and his team-mates will have to conquer the conditions like never before for the first time in this management’s existence. Brendon McCullum and Stokes have only ever worked together in Asia once, in the aforementioned Pakistan series where England put up totals of 657, 246/7 declared, 281, 275, 354 and 170/2. India’s five venues will prove far more testing in nature, with Ashwin, Jadeja, Axar and Kuldeep all lined up.

Ashwin and Jadeja, who in 40 Tests together in India have shared 438 wickets. Axar, who averages 15.97 per wicket at home and who took 27 wickets at 10.59 apiece against England when they last played here in 2021. And Kuldeep, who takes a wicket every 39.8 deliveries in home Tests.

And if you think the challenge to England is just from these four spinners, don’t be mistaken. These turning tracks have helped India’s pacers too Jasprit Bumrah averages under 16 per wicket he takes at home, which has come every six overs. Mohammed Siraj’s stats show just seven wickets at 24.71 from six home Test matches, but he is that rare bowler who can hustle at the start of a match as well as one day three. With these two on board, India won’t need to look at a third pacer.

Ben Duckett, Zak Crawley, Ollie Pope, Root, Stokes, Jonny Bairstow, Dan Lawrence and Ben Foakes have their task in front of them. What worked in Pakistan might work in India, but the chances are slim against this terrific bowling attack. How long has any visiting team managed to attack Ashwin and Jadeja and be successful? A session, at best?

James Anderson, Test cricket’s most successful fast bowler, averages 17.55 for his 18 wickets outside of England since Bazball became a thing and will have to call on the experience of 183 career games. Ollie Robinson bowled 77.1 overs in Pakistan – his only experience of Asia – for nine wickets, but can expect a lot more assistance in India. Mark Wood’s pace might be an asset, but for how many Tests?

So yes, Rohit’s team is the definite favourite to deflate Bazball, particularly because it possesses the better spin attack. This could, and should, be the defining factor after five Tests matches. But don’t assume it will be one-way traffic, because like last year’s BGT showed us, a gripping series comes with its own outlier.

India likely XI for first Test: 1 Rohit Sharma (capt), 2 Yashaswi Jaiswal, 3 Shubman Gill, 4 Shreyas Iyer, 5 KL Rahul, 6 KS Bharat (wk), 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 R Ashwin, 9 Axar Patel, 10 Jasprit Bumrah, 11 Mohammed Siraj