England’s wicket-keeper Jamie Smith came into bat in the day’s second over with the immediate task of denying Mohammed Siraj a dream hat-trick. W, W, W didn’t happen, it would be W, W, 4. The fall of Joe Root and Ben Stokes didn’t deter Smith from playing an audacious straight drive on Siraj’s pitched-up, challenging hat-trick ball.
This is how Smith, his partner Harry Brook, and England in general, play. When cornered they hit themselves out of trouble and keep hitting. In a matter of 25 overs, after India had reduced England to 84/5, Smith reached his 100 in 80 balls in the last over of the session.
Cricket romanticises those that score before lunch and Smith was every bit the knight in shining white flannels. To make matters worse for India, there were two of them. Equally guilty of creating mayhem at Edgbaston was Brook, the chief of Bazball’s youth wing. The two would leave only after England was well and truly in the game. Smith (184 not out) and Brook (158) put on 303 runs for the sixth-wicket partnership. They also ensured that Bazball lived on.
Despite being on the ropes, they had entered the ring punching. Like Smith, Brook wasn’t bothered by India’s massive first innings total of 587, that mini-collapse late on Thursday, the fall of Root and Stokes on Friday. Brook didn’t drop the anchor, or become the good old selfless strike-rotator, who let the in-form Smith face more balls. This was a partnership where finders were keepers. Whoever got a loose ball, saw half a chance to score or just felt like swinging the bat, went for the fences.
Glimpse of the future
This India-England series is giving a glimpse of the future. Two Indians in their 20s, Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal, showed how India will get their runs in the years to come– correct but at a quick pace. On Friday, two other 20-somethings, Smith and Brook, showcased Bazball 2.0. This version was bolder and madder. The two Kiwis – captain Stokes and coach McCullum – have changed the England batting DNA for good, making the MCC coaching manual redundant.
For all its ills and risks, Bazball, when it works, sends rivals into a stupor. They give up on their tried and tested methods that have worked for ages or even a few hours back. For India, bowling the Test line and length was working. That was the reason England were 84/5. Akash Deep overnight and Siraj this morning had got wickets by pitching it up, moving it a bit and surprising batsmen (read Stokes, with a sudden short ball). The old plan was working perfectly.
However, about one hour into the game, Prasidh Krishna gave away 23 runs in an over with Smith hitting a six and four to square leg, one boundary between mid-on and mid-wicket and sent one ball straight out of the ground on one bounce. Prasidh’s over rattled skipper Shubman. Suddenly, India thought they too needed to set the kind of field that Stokes had, rather successfully, placed during the Shubman-Jadeja partnership on Thursday.
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This was to be the crucial period of play. Shubman packed the leg-side with six players—three in the area between mid-wicket and fine-leg and three in the same zone but at around 30 yards. Prasidh was asked to bowl short. This was to be a bait. The bowler kept banging the ball and both Smith and Brook kept hitting the ball on the leg-side. The sharp rising ones they played cautiously, the really short one they ferried over the fence and others they rolled their wrists on the ball to take singles. Prasidh didn’t seem ready for this role, he lacked discipline. There were a few mis-hits but they were nearly catches. Bazball does require a lot of luck.
Scattered pitch-map
India’s main spinner Jadeja too didn’t bowl consistently. Their pitch maps were too scattered to put pressure on the bowlers. On Thursday, Jadeja said they would be going with an in-out field to stop England from running away with the match and also put pressure on them. But the field was more out than in. For most of the day India didn’t look like the team that had scored close to 600 runs in the first innings. Most of the time, there were more men guarding the fence than those taking catches.
The middle session, like when India was batting, was a one-sided contest. Like when England had given up when Shubman was batting and waited for him to make mistakes, India too waited for Smith and Brook to err. That wasn’t to be. England had slightly taken their foot off the pedal after lunch. From being100 or thereabouts in the first, both were around the 150 mark by tea. Records were tumbling and the crowd was getting their money’s worth.
In the first three days of the Test here, 1058 runs have been scored. Back in the day, this wasn’t how it used to be in these parts. In the 2011 series, when only Rahul Dravid among the Indian team could score runs, it was difficult to differentiate between the pitch and outfield. All that has changed. For England’s daredevil batting approach to work it needs a docile track that doesn’t crumble. It also helps if the boundaries are pulled in, like at Edgbaston. But the batsmen need to have the heart, wits and daring, as Smith and Brook displayed for much of the day.
