The Test series defeat to India came in extreme conditions and Joe Root’s side can bounce back this summerAmid all the despair about England’s heavy defeat in the Test series in India, it is important to keep some perspective: before the tour started almost everyone I spoke to was predicting a 4-0 defeat and, though it was in the end only a little less one-sided than that, Joe Root’s side avoided a whitewash and managed to pull off one of their best away results in recent years.India’s record at home is incredible and they came into the series full of confidence after winning in Australia; England had an inexperienced batting lineup, particularly against spin, and badly needed a top-level, ready-to-go...
The wicketkeeper-batsman’s ever-changing Test role has not offered him the best chance to flourish in the longest formatOne summer, when he was 16 years old, carefree and on the very verge of life itself, Jonny Bairstow and a few of his friends went on a surfing holiday to Cornwall. One evening, he tells us in his autobiography, A Clear Blue Sky, they were sitting blissfully on the beach in Newquay when someone asked what everyone’s father did for a living. Bairstow explained in an even voice that his own father had died some years earlier. There was an awkward silence. And then someone laughed: a cruel, disbelieving, illogical laugh. Feeling the tears welling inside him, shaking with rage and embarrassment...
While India’s Virat Kohli talked up the contribution of his newer players, Joe Root admitted his charges have a way to go yetThere was a weary inevitability about the last day of the series. England 10 for one, 10 for two, 20 for three, 30 for four, the wickets dropping like tired eyelids, loss washing over them like sleep falling on an exhausted man.It leaves their winter split neatly in two: three handsome victories – two in Sri Lanka by seven wickets and then six wickets, and one in India by 227 runs – followed by three ugly defeats by, respectively, 317 runs, 10 wickets, and an innings and 25 runs. Related: England fall apart again as spinners wrap up...
Spinner was in luck and in wickets earlier in the tour but will need to dig deep to recover from the mauling he received hereTea-time on day two, and the match is in the balance. India are 153 for six, 52 runs behind, with Rishabh Pant at one end and Washington Sundar the other. England are one wicket away from the tail, and four cheap ones from a lead. So Joe Root decides to open the bowling in the evening session with Dom Bess. It is a show of faith. Bess hasn’t bowled well, but both batsmen are left-handed and, since Bess will have the advantage of turning the ball away from them, Root’s hoping this is his moment. His...
The 23-year-old found a rare fluency with the bat on a day when his teammates fluffed their lines against a ruthless India sideOver recent months the prime minister has attempted to characterise the leader of the opposition, not entirely convincingly, as “Captain Hindsight”. Perhaps the nickname would stick better to the leader of England’s cricket team, who came out for the start of the fourth Test, won the toss, and promptly announced his best team for the third.Sadly the third Test had already been played, with England fielding on that occasion the perfect XI for a notional game that never saw the light of day, a game in which seamers were useful and late-order batsmen were rendered unnecessary by the...