It ended in an avalanche of wickets in the foothills of the Himalayas, as England’s bid to scale the heights on their tour of India descended into the depths of an innings defeat in Dharamshala and an ignominious 4-1 series scoreline that – on this final, sorry evidence, if not the feistier fare that had preceded it – was an apt reflection of the enduring gulf between the sides, not before an all round performance by wrecker in chief Kuldeep Yadav and an 37 year old wise fox Ravichandran Ashwin’s heroic 9 wicket haul in his magical 100th Test.
Kuldeep Yadav in this defeat to England ably supported by Ashwin showed that in subcontinental conditions only spin ball will have a dominant say over Bazball . India won the fifth test match within 2 and a half days in a blink of an eye and send message to Bazballers England that the Indian fortress still remains intact . An 12 year old wait for Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum is now made a little longer thanks due to the innings an 64 runs drubbing at Dharamshala.
Pitch and Toss
“Pitch looks like an absolute belter. The outfield is excellent and it is a smallish ground as well. Should be a good contest between bat and ball,” reckon Nick Knight and Sanjay Manjrekar at the pitch report at the picturesque venue of Dharamshala and the team winning the toss should have definitely chose to bat first.
England captain Ben Stokes won the Toss and chose to bat . Jonny Bairstow was set for his 100th game as England made one change bringing back in Mark Wood for Ollie Robinson. Indian skipper had to contain with bowling first had two changes in his team with Jasprit Bumrah returning to squad after a break in place of Aakash Deep and Devdutt Padikkal getting his debut in place of injured Rajat Patidar with Indian spin wizard Ravichandran Ashwin set to play his 100th test .
Day 1 :India post hard-hitting reply after Kuldeep five-for wrecks England
If, in a nutshell, England’s batting approach on this India tour has been to rack up their runs before they get a ball with their name on it, then in Kuldeep Yadav, they have encountered an opponent whose methods could not be more perfectly tailored to confound them.
Few spin bowlers in history have served up a greater frequency of wicket-taking deliveries than Kuldeep Yadav has now managed, for in rushing through to his first five-wicket haul of a quietly devastating campaign, he brought up his 50th Test wicket from just 1871 deliveries – faster than any spinner since Jonny Briggs in the 19th Century, and more than 55 overs more brisk than India’s next quickest to the mark, Axar Patel, the man who tormented England on their last tour in 2021.
He has 17 wickets from exactly 100 overs in the series now, but nine of those have come in his last 30. Just as he had unpicked England’s batting in the crucial third innings in Ranchi, so it was on his watch that they disintegrated yet again, in tough but tenable batting conditions.
After winning what ought to have been a crucial toss, Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett endured a tough first hour in swinging conditions to lift England to 64 for 0 with their seventh 45-plus stand in nine partnerships in this series. That scoreline, however, was 175 for 6 by the time Ben Stokes had become Kuldeep’s fifth and final scalp, and ultimately 218 all out, once R Ashwin had marked his 100th Test with a four-wicket docking of the tail.
By the close, England’s sense of a missed opportunity had been comprehensively rubbed in by another free-wheeling century stand between India’s captain, Rohit Sharma, who endured to the close on 52 not out, and the Boy Wonder, Yashaswi Jaiswal, who charmed his way to a 56-ball fifty, including three sixes in four balls off Shoaib Bashir to lift his series tally to a scarcely credible 26.
In the course of his innings, Jaiswal rushed past Virat Kohli’s previous record for most runs in a Test series against England (655). Having crossed the 700-mark en route to his fifty, he had Sunil Gavaskar’s legendary tally of 774 in the Caribbean in 1970-71, the most by an India batter in any series, very much in sight too. But then, in a rush of blood, he charged past a wide one from Bashir, having slapped his previous two deliveries for four, to be stumped for 57, and with a third century of the series at his mercy.
Mercy, however, was in broadly short supply on a dismal day for England. The tale of the tape was a sorry one, no matter how thinly you sliced their latest batting collapse. They lost all ten wickets for 154 after Kuldeep Yadav’s first-over googly had foxed a free-flowing Duckett; they lost their last nine for 118 after a skittish Ollie Pope had run past another googly to be stumped, rather gruesomely, on the stroke of lunch.
Worst of all, however, was their mid-afternoon meltdown – five wickets for eight runs between overs 44 and 50, including – surely uniquely – three elite batters with a century of caps each, and not a run added between them in the space of ten balls, as Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root and Ben Stokes came and went with the sort of whimper that England’s no-consequences mindset had been intended to banish.
Bairstow, in his 100th Test, at least produced the innings of raw emotion that his pre-match comments had telegraphed – but, as has been the case throughout a frustratingly unfulfilled campaign, his blazing start gave way to a limp departure. After resolving to climb through anything in his arc, and mixing two sixes off Kuldeep Yadav with a fierce caught-and-bowled opportunity in a wild knock of 29 from 18, he stepped into a loose drive with the ball just outside his eyeline, and burnt a review as Dhruv Jurel snaffled the thin edge.
Root, by this stage, had quietly nudged along to 26 not out – precisely the sort of stealthy progress that has habitually been his calling card. But his equilibrium hasn’t been all that on this tour, the Ranchi century notwithstanding, and in Ravindra Jadeja’s subsequent over, he was nobbled by a classic two-card trick – a bit ripper to beat his outside edge, followed by the slider into the middle of his knee-roll.
Root too decided, belatedly and a touch desperately, to seek a second opinion before HawkEye gave him the bad news, and if that was further evidence of England’s scrambled minds, then Stokes confirmed it by the time Kuldeep Yadav’s next over was done. England’s captain has cut a subdued figure with the bat all series long – his tendency to hang back in the crease to gauge the challenge before taking it on has, inadvertently, come to epitomize precisely the sort of fatalistic batting that his team would otherwise profess to avoid.
And so, just as he was attracting Jasprit Bumrah magic balls at the top end of the series, so he invited Kuldeep to attack him on his own terms here. A huge ripping leg break past his outside edge was followed by an inch-perfect googly, which pinned Stokes on the crease as he flapped reactively across the line. A six-ball duck, and his third single-figure score in quick succession, left England too deep in the mire for salvation.
Ben Foakes at least learned the lessons of his purposeless graft at Ranchi, as he resolved with Shoaib Bashir to counterattack briefly after tea, but as Ashwin picked apart the remainder of the innings – before indulging in a cute game of “you first, no you first” as he handed Kuldeep Yadav the honor of leading the team off the field – it was self-evident that England had blown their best chance of retreating from this tough tour with pride intact.
Once again, England’s best performer was Crawley at the very top of the order. For the ninth time out of nine, he reached double-figures with more composure than the early-morning conditions might have warranted, with his sublime reach on the cover drive yet again the stand-out feature of his innings. But, once again, he failed to convert a formidable start – falling this time for a series-best 79, his fourth half-century and the highest of three 70-plus scores.
Kuldeep Yadav, inevitably, was the man who prized him out, and it was a magnificent delivery to be fair – a tossed-up leg break, high above the eyeline, that dipped, ripped and took out the leg stump as Crawley was lured into yet another of his cover drives, only to be carved open in the process.
But he had already ridden a fair bit of luck by that stage – including a tough caught-and-bowled chance in Jadeja’s first over, and a strangle down the leg side off Kuldeep moments after lunch that Sarfaraz Khan at short leg was rightly adamant should have been reviewed. He also survived, on 29, a leg-stump umpire’s call lbw shout off Mohammad Siraj, precisely the sort of dismissal that had been going against him earlier in the series.
At that stage, India’s quicks had been extracting 2.4 degrees of swing, compared to less than a degree in the previous four Tests. In short, England had weathered the storm, and should have been capable of cashing in on a surface that India have subsequently proven to be full of runs. Kuldeep Yadav’s methods, however, don’t allow for such bedding-down. You don’t imagine there’ll be any let-up from hereon in.
Day 2 :Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill’s centuries lay the base for India’s show of dominance as Kuldeep Yadav shows late resistance
India took the scenic route to a match-dominating position in the Dharamsala Test, batting throughout the second day to amass a lead of 255 over England with two wickets still standing. There were hundreds for Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill, fifties for Sarfaraz Khan and the debutant Devdutt Padikkal, as the India top order all contributed to post an imposing total in the shadow of the Dhauladhars.
Even some Ben Stokes magic with the ball could not turn the tide of England’s fortunes. Stokes claimed the wicket of Rohit with his first delivery of the series, having not bowled competitively since the second Test of last year’s Ashes. A sharply seaming ball that hit Rohit’s off stump as he resumed his innings after the lunch break not only ended a 171-run stand for the second wicket, but added to the list of what-might-have-beens for England on this tour.
With Stokes back to fulfill his allrounder status after a gap of 251 days, England’s attack plugged away manfully in placid conditions. But they were let down by a few scruffy moments in the field, which included Stokes dropping Sarfaraz in his follow through from a delivery that was subsequently called a no-ball.
Shoaib Bashir impressed once again, providing both durability and cutting edge despite still suffering the after-effects of a stomach bug that limited his involvement in the build-up. His 44-over stint matched the first innings in Ranchi for his longest in first-class cricket, and had Zak Crawley not missed a sharp chance at leg slip when Rohit was on 68, Bashir might have been able celebrate a second five-for in only his third Test. Then, in Bashir’s final over of the day, Stokes put down Kuldeep Yadav in the slips as India’s ninth-wicket pair successfully navigated a way to the close.
After a serene morning session for India in which they had added 129 without loss, Rohit’s dismissal was followed by Gill having his off stump flattened, James Anderson bagging wicket No. 699 in Tests and giving England something to rally around. The lead at that stage was 61, but any sense of an opportunity for England was scotched by another bright partnership between two batters for the future.
Padikkal, at No. 4, initially found the boundary with regularity while Sarfaraz bedded in. Having moved watchfully to 9 off 30 balls, Sarfaraz kicked up through the gears with a flurry of attacking shots to raises his third Test half-century. Mark Wood was dispatched into the crowd before Sarfaraz took on Tom Hartley with the second new ball as India extended their lead beyond 150 at tea.
England again struck straight after the interval, Bashir having Sarfaraz caught at slip attempting to cut the first ball back. Padikkal nonchalantly lofted the England offspinner for six over long-on to bring up his maiden fifty but he, too, could not go on as Bashir caught him on the crease with one that turned to hit the top of off stump. Dhruv Jurel holed out to give Bashir his fourth and Hartley then struck twice in the following over, Ravindra Jadeja pinned lbw before R Ashwin played around one that went on with the arm.
By that stage, the outline of the day was as clear as the hills in the background, India having cruised into the ascendency without breaking much of a sweat. The overnight pair both went on to record their second hundreds of the series – Rohit’s 12th overall, Gill with his fourth in Tests – as the home side tightened their grip on the match.
Rohit twice lofted Bashir back over his head in the third over of the morning, before Gill charged Anderson to hit him disdainfully for six, as they added 50 to the score within the first ten overs of play. Gill’s fifty came up from 64 balls as he closed the gap on his captain, who batted on unruffled after seeing an inside edge off Bashir evade Crawley.
India’s second consecutive hundred partnership was raised when Rohit flat-batted Wood through extra cover and they moved past England’s total of 218 shortly thereafter, Gill swinging Bashir down the ground for another of his five sixes.
Rohit was the first to reach his century, flicking Hartley through the leg side with lunch approaching. Two balls later, Gill slog-swept Bashir for four to bring up three figures, too. Stokes had shot down talk in the build-up about whether he might help balance the attack in more seam-friendly conditions but he immediately produced a “who writes your scripts?” moment after bringing himself on in tandem with Anderson at the start of the afternoon session.
Anderson had his revenge on Gill with one that came back through the gate and Padikkal twice edged wide of the slips as England briefly rallied. The false shots were replaced by growing sense of authority, however, as a 97-run stand between Padikkal and Sarfaraz once again shut the door on Stokes and Co. Both batters must have contemplated the opportunity for a first Test hundred, only for Bashir to inspire another belated fightback. But England, having tumbled down a ravine with the bat, were already left facing a mountain to climb.
Day 3 : Dominant India decimates Bazballers England as sensational Kuldeep Yadav and Ravichandran Ashwin wrecks havoc in 5th Test
R Ashwin’s 36th five-wicket haul (5-77) in Tests led India’s clinical bowling display on the third day of the fifth Test against England in Dharamsala, powering the hosts to a mammoth victory margin of an innings and 64 runs.
The off-spinner became only the fourth bowler in history to achieve a fifer in the 100th Test and ended the game level with Muttiah Muralitharan for the most wickets in the landmark Test – 9. Joe Root (84) was the only England batter in the second innings to show resolve and he looked largely flawless at the crease, only to run out of partners at the other end.
After James Anderson’s landmark 700th scalp in the morning session had hastened the end of India’s innings, the onus was on England to put up a strong fight to sign off the tour. Unfortunately for them, that wasn’t to be. Ashwin sliced through the top-order with his guile, forcing England’s batters to play with indecision.
Jonny Bairstow (39 off 31) threatened to provide some entertainment but as was the case in the first innings, his fun was cut short by Kuldeep Yadav as soon as the wrist spinner was brought on. When Stokes fell to Ashwin at the stroke of lunch, it was a dismissal that summed up England’s fortunes in the series.
Tom Hartley promised to dig in for a bit with Root before the former was taken out by a Jasprit Bumrah special to be trapped LBW. In the same over, India’s vice-captain produced a similar nut to get Mark Wood LBW. Shoaib Bashir, though, dug in for a while to support Root’s quest for a ton and the partnership stretched the game deep into the session.
However, a cracker from Ravindra Jadeja cleaned up Bashir, leaving Root with no choice but to take the bowling on. In the process, he perished to long-on, to give India a crushing win. Much like in the first innings, England’s batting once again came a cropper.
If Ashwin sealed the game on day three, the victory was set up by Kuldeep Yadav’s brilliance (5-72) on day one. While England’s decision to bat under seamer-friendly conditions was a brave one, it was soon evident that it was the right call. After the morning session, the pitch started to play true, allowing batters to play their shots.
However, there was just a bit of hold in there for spinners if they were willing to be accurate, and Kuldeep was just that. It also helped that he had a bag of tricks to which England had no answer to. Right through the series, the 29-year-old had dented the visitors with his repertoire and Dharamsala was no different.
Zak Crawley (79) showed that runs were there to be made but his dismissal also showed how good Kuldeep was in the first innings. The visitors lost six wickets in just 37 balls and on a good batting surface, that was unpardonable
. Ashwin duly mopped up the lower order to end with a four-fer in the first innings, and that momentum was carried on by the veteran into the second innings when he bowled close to his best in the series. India’s batters didn’t make the mistake of their counterparts and feasted on the surface by piling on the runs. Yashaswi Jaiswal smashed a fifty, going past 700 runs in the series as well but couldn’t kick on.
However, the momentum he gave set up Rohit Sharma (103) and Shubman Gill (110) to notch up their respective second tons of the series. Their 171-run stand flattened England as runs came at a brisk pace with boundaries.
Both took the spinners to the cleaners and Stokes’ unorthodox plans with the field sets also didn’t work. Rohit feasted on anything short and wide on either side of the wicket while Shubman Gill’s footwork against spin was a delight to watch. England did remove the set batters in succession through Stokes’ magic ball – his first of the series – to remove the Indian captain. Anderson then removed Gill but India refused to put their foot off the pedal.
The visitors then had to contend with fifties from Devdutt Padikkal (65) and Sarfaraz Khan (56). The duo came out with a counterpunch mentality at a time when England were hoping to make further inroads with the ball reversing.
Both had their moments of fortune but also displayed tremendous bravado through testing spells. Even Kuldeep Yadav (30) himself was involved in a 49-run stand with Bumrah (20) as India’s batters blunted England’s venomless bowling attack to the core. Bashir (5-173) ended with a fifer and while he did bowl well in parts, the inexperience showed.
England’s moments to remember in the game were Anderson’s milestone and Stokes’ ripper to Sharma. Across the series, the visitors’ bowling attack got found out and so did their muddled batting approach. On a sporting Dharamsala surface, India were just too hot to handle giving England a 4-1 drubbing in a 5 match test series .
Presentations and Road Ahead.
Ben Stokes the loosing captain said :
“We have been outplayed by the better team of the series. We got so much cricket coming up, so looking forward to it. When you look at the series as a whole, in those small moments we haven’t been able to keep it going. We all know as individuals as to where it all went wrong,”
“When India got on top with the ball a lot of men come around the bat and you got to find ways to keep those guys out of play and you need to be positive enough to take those risks and sometimes it could lead to downfall. Crawley and Duckett continuing their partnership at the top and Bashir and Hartley have been really exceptional the whole series and Root coming into form at the backend is really exciting ahead of our summer,”
“Amazing to be on the field with Jimmy. 700 wickets for a seamer is quite phenomenal, from the day he first started being a cricketer to where he is now, the desire and commitment is still there and he is the fittest cricketer I have ever seen,”
Kuldeep Yadav Player of the Match for 7 wickets and 30 runs said :
“Yes (When asked if this was the best he ever bowled in a series). It is the hard work I did in the last couple of years and I am getting the reward. I really bowled well in Ranchi, the wicket was slow and the way I used the drift over there was fantastic,”
“I liked the Stokes wicket in Ranchi and also like the Crawley wicket, that was a beautiful ball. I just focus on keeping it on a good length and that is very important for a spinner in a format and not thinking too much about what the batter is trying to do. I really liked my rhythm. Credit goes to batting coach, he helped me a lot. Not just the skill aspect, but also the mental aspect. Always backing me in the net sessions,”
Yashasvi Jaiswal for his mammoth 712 runs in 9 innings got Player of the Series award said :
“I really enjoyed the series, happy with the way I played throughout the series. I was just thinking if I can take a bowler down, I will take him down and that’s the plan and there’s no backing out. Trying to take it one game at a time and always thinking of how I can contribute for my team so that I can keep the team in a winning position,”
Rohit Sharma the winning Indian skipper said :
“When you win a Test like this, everything has to fall in place. At some stage people are gonna and people are gonna come and we know that. These guys are maybe short of experience, they have played a lot of cricket and I can stand here and see that these guys responded pretty well under pressure,”
“The credit goes to the entire team and it was pleasing to see. When you win a series like this, we talk about scoring runs and 100s but it is important to take 20 wickets to win a Test,”
“The way bowlers took responsibility was pleasing to see. It was over a period of time that we had a conversation (with Kuldeep), he’s got a lot of potential and when the chips were down in the 1st innings, he bowled really well and after his injury he came back and worked at NCA and he is putting a lot of effort and the most pleasing thing was his batting,”
“He’s (talking about Jaiswal) got a long way to go, amazing to be in this position. When a guy’s got talent like that who can put pressure on the bowlers from the word go, there will be lots of challenges going forward. He is a tough guy and loves the challenges, clearly superb series for him and likes to score big,”
India complete a comprehensive win. They seal it by an innings and 64 runs. Bumrah tuned back and pumped his fist as soon as he took the catch and good to see Rohit ambling into the middle to congratulate his boys.
A thumping comeback for ages from the hosts and one that will be known for many different reasons of course. No Kohli No KL Rahul, no Jadeja for a Test, missing Ashwin for a day and a half, injury scare to some of their key performers, Bumrah rested, Siraj rested. Lost the first Test from a dominating position and then to respond with a 4-1 series win and now stands a top the WTC points table as the players after few days rest would land in their respective IPL franchises for the extravaganza to start on 22nd March 2024
Bazball. Bash ball. Bang ball. You can have all these fancy incongruous labels to the brand of cricket you want to play. Whether it is the hype from the media or the heights of madness caused by flabbergasted approach, Stokes and McCullum certainly had their “bed of roses” phase. 4 series wins, 3 drawn series’ in the space of 13 months. Whoa! A lot of it must have felt like a dream given the well-documented red-ball struggles of England over the prior to B-Mac’s appointment.
The road rash had to meet its burnout at some point. When England won in Hyderabad, there were theories floating around the lofty standards Stokes men set regarding the approach and ambience of Test cricket. Six weeks later, the sky-high theories slowly faded into some sort of sympathetic trolls. And what exactly happened in between? India, despite being thrown into tumultuous territories on occasions, found a way to sink the scorching Bazball sphere into the mire.
And as if to add an extra cherry to their cake, they dismantled the English audacity into a speck of sand at the hilly heels of Dharamsala. It’s the first series loss for the Stokes-B-Mac duo and one that will surely sting for many more months to come. Especially after starting on a promising note and having thrown positions of dominance to be sandwiched by the spin-trio ultimately.
To rub more rock salt into those soaring wounds, just 2 Test wins in the last decade for England. When the English selectors table a post-tour review, one factor that doesn’t escape their minds is the number-game as their next home season starts after the T20I World Cup taking West Indies on home soil in test cricket.