The Shorter Wisden 2013

by John Wisden

  But Cook’s contribution started long before the team departed for a pre-tour training camp in Dubai. It was partly his determination that helped find a solution to the Pietersen episode after he was left out of the initial touring party, and it was his alliance with Flower that rammed home a no-excuses mindset. Where previous England teams in India had been daunted by the conditions, the travel, the food, the weight of history and just about everything else, this one made a point of embracing the culture and the conditions. Almost without exception – and despite some justification at times – they never breathed a word of complaint. Unsurprisingly, Cook’s presence as a tactician grew too, after a shaky start on the first day of the series. By contrast, Dhoni looked one-dimensional, and England privately noted his tendency to change the field in response to the previous ball.

  Where Cook led from the front, others gradually followed. At Ahmedabad, only Matt Prior – a beacon of selfless energy and skill throughout – and Swann rallied round their captain. Even at Mumbai, the excellence of a few compensated for the travails of the rest: Pietersen, with an innings of rare genius, turned the tide of the series, before Panesar, with his best match figures in Tests, joined Swann to claim the best analysis – 19 for 323 – by a pair of England spinners in more than 54 years. Panesar and Swann ended up with 37 wickets at 25 apiece, and a combined strike-rate of 60, easily outperforming their Indian counterparts, Pragyan Ojha and the desperately disappointing Ravichandran Ashwin, who between them managed 34 wickets at nearly 40, with a strike-rate of 86. Seldom, if ever, had overseas spinners so dominated in India.

  England were fitter and quicker than India in the field; off it, they appeared more united. Ian Bell, who missed the Second Test in a fruitless attempt to get home in time to witness the birth of his first child, struggled with the bat until a final-day hundred at Nagpur. But he had already pulled off a direct hit from midwicket to run out Cheteshwar Pujara, India’s prolific No. 3, at Kolkata, then a superb catch at short leg – admittedly off the batsman’s elbow – to dismiss him at Nagpur.

  Compton, without ever nailing the definitive innings he craved, added solidity, four times in succession putting on 50 or more with Cook; not since Michael Vaughan and Marcus Trescothick in 2002 had the same pair of English openers achieved such a feat. Their overall record – 493 runs at 70 – was 20 better than India’s experienced pair of Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir, whose running between the wickets was a liability. Compton, Jonathan Trott and Finn – in his only Test of the series – weighed in at Kolkata. And at Nagpur, Joe Root, who made a composed debut, could also feel satisfied. James Anderson’s contribution was telling. After an impotent start, he bowled with greater pace than for some time, gained swing – both reverse and conventional – and extracted movement off unhelpful pitches. He was later described by Dhoni as “the major difference” between the sides; his haul of 12 wickets at 30 apiece barely did him justice.

  But the tour was not an unqualified success. Stuart Broad, the new vice-captain, struggled with injury and illness, and was dropped for Kolkata amid suggestions from bowling coach David Saker that he had to “front up”. Tim Bresnan, like Broad, finished wicketless, and looked bereft of pace and confidence. Samit Patel’s batting failed to compensate for the limitations of his left-arm spin. Dropped for Nagpur after two matches in which Panesar’s presence rendered his bowling redundant, he finished with doubts over his Test future.

  However, it was India who had more headaches. Defeated at home for the first time since 2004-05 – and for only the fourth time in 40 bilateral series since losing to Gower’s England – this was a result to prick the bubble that had been shielding them from the harsh wind of reality. While whitewashes in England and Australia had been excused – erroneously, in the main – on the grounds that conditions had been manufactured to thwart them, the stain on their proud home record could not be so easily ignored.

  There were several issues, not least the paucity of fast-bowling options after the dangerous Umesh Yadav picked up a back injury that ruled him out after Ahmedabad; Zaheer Khan faded, and was dropped, five Test wickets short of 300. The lack of fitness among their leading players was damning; so too the decline of Sachin Tendulkar. Only once before had he averaged under 20 in a series of three Tests or more, while 76 of his 112 runs came in one innings, at Kolkata. Even there, he laboured unedifyingly for almost every one. His announcement soon after the series of his retirement from one-day cricket felt as if it didn’t go far enough. Meanwhile, the recall at Mumbai of Harbhajan Singh – who had taken only 18 first-class wickets at 40 each since his previous Test, 16 months earlier – and at Nagpur of Piyush Chawla, a leg-spinner averaging over 40 in his previous three years of first-class cricket, underlined the sense of a nation not boasting strength in depth so much as mediocrity. It had been years since the cupboard looked so bare.

  There was some room for optimism. Pujara, unstoppable in the first two Tests, hinted he could yet be a worthy successor to Rahul Dravid, before falling away as umpiring errors and the running of his colleagues conspired against him. Virat Kohli belatedly provided a reminder of his class with a century at Nagpur, while Ojha – despite fading as the series progressed – finished level with Swann as the leading wicket-taker.

  But it was telling that, even as Dhoni asked for patience for his team-in-transition, he admitted the pain of defeat was “not even close” to what he had experienced when India were eliminated from the 2007 World Cup. Perhaps their failure to win the two-match Twenty20 series – an unwanted dessert after a satisfying main course, staged just before England returned home for Christmas – stung more. A second-string England side lacking the rested Pietersen and Swann, plus the injured Broad and Finn, came away with a 1–1 draw. Eoin Morgan, captain in Broad’s place, hit the last ball of the second match, at the Wankhede, for six to deny India even minor consolation.

  The refusal of the BCCI to accept the Decision Review System led, predictably, to renewed scrutiny of umpiring errors and some poor on-field behaviour. Perhaps the absence of technology’s safety net played on the officials’ minds, with as skilled a judge as Aleem Dar enduring an awful game at Mumbai. While the BCCI’s reservations over ball-tracking technology were at least understandable, many of the errors that affected both sides would have been simply corrected by use of the replay facility. The board’s stance looked stubborn rather than principled.

  The same might have been said for their attitude towards the media. The decision to withhold accreditation from several photo-only agencies, and demand extra funds from the BBC and Sky – both broadcast rights-holders – briefly threatened a partial media blackout. Sky opted to commentate from their base in London and rely on the BCCI’s live feed, while most UK publications refused to condone what they saw as an attempt to restrict press freedom, and boycotted live photos entirely; the BBC’s extra costs were paid for by a third party, and they covered the series as planned. The BCCI justified their stance on the grounds that providing floor space for broadcasters incurred extra costs; and some photo agencies, they argued, sold their pictures for commercial gain that had little to do with editorial coverage. There was a little truth in both claims, but it was hard to believe that any short-term benefits of the BCCI’s policy would not be vastly outweighed by the long-term dilution in the value of media rights.

  There were concerns, too, about a national board providing TV coverage and still pictures, and employing commentators. It took 40 minutes for Star Cricket, the host broadcasters, to show a replay of Jonny Bairstow’s dismissal at Mumbai after he was wrongly given out caught via the grille of Gambhir’s helmet at silly point. Similarly, an unsuccessful appeal against Trott at Nagpur – arguably the key moment of the fourth day – and the subsequent show of dissent from India’s fielders, led by Kohli, was omitted from the first highlights package. Meanwhile, an incident in the First Test, when Trott said he was unsure whether he had taken a slip catch cleanly (replays categorically showed he hadn’t) was held against
England for the remainder of the series.

  While it is true that a tour of India does not present the challenges – in terms of hotels and travel – it once did, the record books underline how difficult it is to win there. Many fine teams have travelled to India in hope, and many have left disappointed. The hosts had lost the likes of Dravid, Anil Kumble and V. V. S. Laxman, but still called on nine of the men who had led them to the top of the world rankings. No visiting team had won back-to-back Tests in India since South Africa early in 2000; England had not done so since 1976-77. By any standards, victory ranked as one of the most impressive feats in their Test history.

  Ali Martin writes: England’s approach to the one-day series in the New Year was a reflection of their priorities. With the 2013 Champions Trophy being held in England and the 2015 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, five matches in Asian conditions were always going to sit low on their list. Swann, Anderson and Trott were all rested, while Broad missed the first three games to attend to his sore heel, then the last two when his flight was grounded at Heathrow by snow. Even so, victory in the Tests, and their No. 1 ranking in 50-over cricket, meant England were tipped to fare better than the sides which suffered 5–0 thrashings in India in 2008-09 and 2011-12.

  Ashley Giles took on his first assignment as England’s limited-overs coach, following team director Andy Flower’s workload reduction. There were international bows for new grounds at Rajkot, Ranchi and Dharmasala as the Indian board used second-tier locations rather than the big urban centres. And it worked, with each sold-out venue providing a unique match in a range of conditions. For England, it was also a first look at the new 50-over playing regulations. The fast bowlers could bowl two bouncers per over. No more than four fielders (down from five) were now allowed outside the circle during standard overs, while a solitary five-over batting powerplay was to be started between the 11th and 36th overs following the initial ten; as a result, the batting side tended to opt for wickets in hand followed by a late push.

  India’s 3–2 victory, built on English collapses in the second and third games, was deserved, even if all five tosses proved match-winning, an advantage most pronounced in the series clincher at Mohali. While weakened of their own volition, England saw two men step up: James Tredwell took 11 wickets at 18, while Root averaged 54 with the bat. But Jade Dernbach went at 7.34 runs an over and was dropped for the New Zealand tour, along with wicketkeeper Craig Kieswetter, who struggled down the order. Pietersen played his first one-day international cricket since coming out of his short-lived retirement, while Bell finished the series as he had the Tests – with a classy unbeaten century.

  WINNING IN INDIA

  The repeat performance

  VIC MARKS

  History rarely repeats itself. But cricket correspondents sometimes do. We kept banging on about the similarities between England’s 1984-85 tour of India and this one, mainly because there was some justification for doing so.

  On both trips phlegmatic, photogenic left-handers captained England teams (David Gower then, Alastair Cook now), and the bookmakers expected defeat. Both sides lost the First Test comfortably, which increased the gloom, only to fight back and take a 2–1 lead. Then, to the infuriation of home captains past and present (Sunil Gavaskar and M. S. Dhoni), India encountered slow, stultifying pitches – at Kanpur in 1984-85, and Nagpur in 2012-13. Thus on both occasions England were able to draw the final Test without too much bother, and win the series.

  But first the differences: fortunately, Cook’s expedition was not marred by assassinations or environmental catastrophes. On Gower’s tour, the Indian Prime Minister, Mrs Gandhi, was shot a few hours after we arrived in Delhi; Percy Norris, Britain’s Deputy High Commissioner, was killed 24 hours before the First Test at Bombay; then there was the Bhopal chemical-plant disaster. At various stages, press and players thought they would be going home. By these standards, the BCCI’s tiffs with English broadcasters and photographers in 2012-13 were not significant.

  The two England captains had contrasting tours with the bat. Cook was inspirational for three Tests, but out of sorts at Nagpur; Gower was practically runless until Kanpur, when he scored 78 and 32 not out. However, both men dealt with so-called troublemakers calmly and to everyone’s advantage. Gower was rehabilitating Phil Edmonds, too high-maintenance for previous England captains, and his left-arm spin proved more important than the figures – 14 wickets at 41 – suggest. Cook was rehabilitating Kevin Pietersen, whose 186 in the Second Test at Mumbai was critical to England’s resurgence. More broadly, neither captain allowed their squads to retreat into a siege mentality, which can easily be a trap in India.

  England’s spinners outbowled their opponents on both tours, though Edmonds and Pat Pocock were not as prolific as Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar. Their batsmen were often more patient than the Indians, who in both series seemed seduced by the charms of limited-overs cricket. In 1984-85, India were still basking in their World Cup success in England in 1983; maybe that was also the case in 2012-13, after their World Cup victory the previous year. Moreover, for the modern Indian cricketer there is also the lucrative distraction of the IPL.

  In both series, the Indian side was restless and introspective. Gavaskar was having a mini-feud with Kapil Dev, while Dhoni had to lead an ageing team, in which players were constantly looking over their shoulders, and their champion, Sachin Tendulkar, played just one innings of significance. To say the least, this was unsettling.

  Cook’s England side were almost certainly better than Gower’s, who were missing Ian Botham (resting), Graham Gooch and John Emburey (both banned). But before celebrating such an objective assessment from an old-timer, let us end with this thought: since the talents of the 1984-85 side were so relatively modest, perhaps their achievement was the greater.

  Vic Marks toured India in 1984-85 as an off-spinner (but didn’t play a Test), and in 2012-13 as a journalist for The Guardian, The Observer and Test Match Special.

  THE INDIAN REACTION

  Revenge – and a reality check

  ANJALI DOSHI

  The Hindi words for “revenge” and “change” are similar, which offered the Indian media an ironic twist and plenty of scope for cheeky puns during the Test series. The rabble-rousing theme of revenge (badla) on England’s arrival transformed into a mocking lament about how nothing had changed (kuch nahin badla) – a reference to India’s 8–0 losing streak in England and Australia – followed by a demand for, yes, sweeping changes (badal dalo).

  Clearly, nobody saw the drubbing coming, least of all the official broadcasters – Rupert Murdoch’s Star network – who ran jingoistic promos in colloquial Hindi asking whether India would beat England to a pulp. Once that question had been answered, the promos were pulled off air.

  The revenge rhetoric played at full volume when India won the First Test at Ahmedabad, but lost its voice after defeat at Mumbai. M. S. Dhoni’s obsession with pitches came in for sharp criticism, as did the listlessness of the Indian spinners. But it was the hopeless surrender at Eden Gardens that culminated in an uproar over the “humiliation at home” on perpetually hyper news networks, such as Times Now, Aaj Tak and Star News, and fever-pitched calls for “heads to roll” in several newspapers, including the Times of India.

  Just when things could not, it seemed, get any worse, came former selector Mohinder Amarnath’s claim on CNN-IBN that Dhoni had managed to hold on to the captaincy earlier in the year only because N. Srinivasan, the BCCI president, had overruled the selectors’ decision to sack him. The insinuation was obvious: Srinivasan, vice-chairman of India Cements, the company that owns the Chennai Super Kings IPL team, was out to protect his franchise’s brand equity by ensuring their skipper remained India’s captain too.

  This outburst from Amarnath, who had lost his job after only a year, threatened to overshadow India’s worst performance at home since 1999-2000. But it was followed by more quickfire autopsies from former cricketers, including Sunil Gavaskar, who attacked
them for “treating Test cricket in a cavalier manner” in the era of Twenty20, and demanded Dhoni’s instant removal. Only a couple of pieces really attempted to examine the IPL effect on Indian cricket, and the BCCI’s role in the mess. But it was Dhoni himself who came up with the most telling take on India’s priorities, saying this crisis was “not even close” to the early exit from the 2007 World Cup.

  India’s crammed schedule provides little time for introspection. So what could have been a watershed moment prompting serious probing by the media and internal reviews by the board, which reported around £100m in revenue in 2011-12, was soon forgotten. After India won the first Twenty20 game against England, newspaper headlines exclaimed: “Make winning a habit” and “Bashing over, time for bash”. When they lost the second at Mumbai, it was already time to preview the limited-overs series against Pakistan.

  It was no surprise, perhaps, that the most vociferous critic of India’s trouncing was an Englishman. Geoffrey Boycott was the only commentator “free from BCCI shackles”, as his Star Cricket colleague Sanjay Manjrekar let slip on Twitter. The tweet disappeared from his timeline within minutes.