England Collapse in Final Test V India

byronbay2

Missed this at the time but just saw the highlights of Day 5 of the 5th test between India and England, which ended yesterday morning. England won the toss, batted first and made 477 in the 1st innings. India then made a gigantic 759-7 declared, with Nair making 303 n.o. I think it's fair to say that this was a batsman's pitch!

India delayed the declaration on Day 4 so that Nair could reach his triple-century. England successfully saw out 5 overs on Day 4 without loss and faced Day 5 with 10 wickets in hand on an incredibly docile pitch for a face-saving Draw after 3 successive defeats. I thought it was a formality!

The draw looked an absolute certainty after the first session with England still to lose a wicket and both Cook and Jennings approaching half-centuries. What happened after Lunch was one of the worst collapses I have ever seen, with England falling from 103-0 to 207 all-out. It was real horror-show stuff with batsmen playing crazy, high-risk shots for no reason whatsoever. It was certainly the most shambolic England performance I have seen for a looong time, 20 years or more. I can understand a collapse where the ball is bouncing or spinning all over the place and batting is hard but this pitch was a batsman's dream!

Anyhoo, thought I'd start this thread to see if anyone had an opinion on the collapse, this match or the series in general.

pajor

I've sort of fallen out with following cricket in the past year or so. Living in The Netherlands doesn't help. An South African ex-colleague also couldn't understand the relative success of Dutch T20 and "what's cricket?"

Anyway.. I hadn't seen it either but holy shmokes, that test sounds like nothing short of a thumping. :eek:

Beasty

The series was nothing short of a thumping. Of course the conditions suited India big-time, but I suspect England were just looking forward to getting home for XMas during that 2nd innings.

Having said that there were some good signs for England through the series with Root and Bairstow doing nothing to harm their reputations and Jennings looking a potential star of the future

Attention now turns to the one day series in the new year, and also Cook's captaincy. There's more than a rumour flying round that he may step down, but still be available for the team. Michael Vaughan has been saying with hindsight he wished he could have done that, and Cook remains a high quality opener. I also think England will bounce back when they return to Test cricket on home territory in the summer.

axe2grind

That was about the 4th similar collapse during past couple months. They lost to Bangladesh with an even worse collapse, also having been 100/0

markbrop

England were poor throughout this test series. Considering that Cook won four out of five tosses they should have done a lot better. Their batting is still very dodgy when conditions are not in their favour. They have discarded the likes of KP and Bell far too quickly. And they still lack a top quality spinner.

byronbay2

Beasty wrote: »

Attention now turns to the one day series in the new year, and also Cook's captaincy. There's more than a rumour flying round that he may step down, but still be available for the team.

I think that would be a good idea. Cook has been captain for a long time and it's probably time to let Root have a go at it. Cook still very much worth his place on the Test team, though.

axe2grind wrote: »

That was about the 4th similar collapse during past couple months. They lost to Bangladesh with an even worse collapse, also having been 100/0

England are always susceptible to the collapse but usually in tricky batting situations, such as Bangladesh (and Aus etc). It should have been an absolute doddle to bat for 2 sessions with 10 wickets on that pitch. I would certainly rank it as the worst England collapse I have seen for a long time.

markbrop wrote: »

Their batting is still very dodgy when conditions are not in their favour. They have discarded the likes of KP and Bell far too quickly. And they still lack a top quality spinner.

It's hard for an English team to go to India (and vice-versa) and bat well in those conditions. I still think that it's a pretty strong team and they will be hard to beat at home in the summer Tests against SA and WI.

Regarding a spinner, it is very hard to create a top-quality spinner in England. They would be better off doing a "KP/Morgan job" and using the granny/domicile rule to get a ready-made spinner from Ind/Pak/Bangl.

markbrop

byronbay2 wrote: »

It's hard for an English team to go to India (and vice-versa) and bat well in those conditions. I still think that it's a pretty strong team and they will be hard to beat at home in the summer Tests against SA and WI.

I think they will beat West Indies pretty easily. Their Test side is very weak at the moment. SA could be a lot tougher. They managed to win in Australia despite being without Steyn and De Villiers.

byronbay2

markbrop wrote: »

I think they will beat West Indies pretty easily. Their Test side is very weak at the moment. SA could be a lot tougher. They managed to win in Australia despite being without Steyn and De Villiers.

I don't agree that their Test side is weak at the moment - Cook, Root, Stokes, Broad and Anderson are all excellent players in English conditions - but would agree that SA will give them a very good run for their money in the summer. I would not fancy any of the other Test-playing nations to do so.

Beasty

I suspect markbrop was suggesting the WI Test side is weak, not England's;)

dfx-

aside from the collapses, the nature of the flogging in India's 759/7 was probably the time where England had given up..

It seemed towards the end that they were scoring twenty runs a ball...

ArmaniJeanss

Should cricket be making more of an effort to 'level up' conditions?
If England were playing a 5game home series against India next summer and an away series against them next winter then the most likely results would again be comfortable 4-0/4-1/5-0 home victories for either team.
So we'd be no closer to knowing which is best, which is presumably the idea of a sporting contest.

It just seems an archaic concept that home advantage should be so over-riding a factor. It's something that used to exist in other sports (soccer and the way European teams couldn't win a WC outside their continent until Spain in 2010) but is generally no longer an issue in a global era.

Beasty

It's part of the appeal of the game though. The sub-continent was always considered a massive challenge for countries without the spinning tradition. Fast and bouncy in the likes of Australia, with overcast weather often playing a very big part in England with seamers coming to the fore.

Of course they did even up conditions a bit when they started covering pitches. Before that Derek Underwood was certainly "deadly" on a drying pitch

The way it is now though allows some of the real greats t shine through. They earn the accolade if they can perform at the highest level in all conditions.

markbrop

byronbay2 wrote: »

I don't agree that their Test side is weak at the moment - Cook, Root, Stokes, Broad and Anderson are all excellent players in English conditions - but would agree that SA will give them a very good run for their money in the summer. I would not fancy any of the other Test-playing nations to do so.

No I was actually referring to the West Indies Test team as very weak. They did manage to win the third Test Match against Pakistan in the UAE but otherwise their test performances have been very poor. Pakistan did manage a 2-2 draw in England last summer but their performances in NZ and Australia have been pretty awful.