“It was never too far.”
When Ben Stokes says this after England falls 106 runs short of 398, you pause and take note. The unshakeable belief Stokes has in every member of this squad irrespective of age and experience is still understandable. But it’s this confidence that no score and no target is beyond them if they put their mind to it can be scary. It encouraged Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett to chew up 67 runs out of a target of 399 in just 14 overs on Day 2, like it pushed Ben Foakes and Tom Hartley to add 55 when all seemed lost on Monday.
Not to forget, this England has chased down 378 before. Stokes himself was at the front and centre of that epic 362-run Ashes chase at Leeds in 2019, 76 of which were scored with No.11 Jack Leach at the other end. It’s a matter of time before England come upon a pitch and a collective day off for the Indian bowling to make that happen. And with three Tests to go, England know they have plenty of time to leave their imprint on this tour.
“Being 2-0 up would be great for us, but that’s the great thing about a five-match series,” said Stokes. “It’s the end of the series where everything counts. We’re a very level-headed team and that allows us to put things behind us, move on to the next thing and concentrate there. Last week, we were pretty level even though we had achieved something pretty special. We recognised that but we didn’t get too high. Same this week, in the changing room we’re still very upbeat about some of the great stuff we’ve managed to do albeit not getting the result we wanted.”
That too without taking their foot off the pedal. Two days and 190 overs could have invited a different approach, especially after Rehan Ahmed was sent in as nightwatchman, but Stokes said they will stay true to their strength — attacking.
“We had to come up with a way in which we thought would give us the best chance to chase down a very big total,” said Stokes. “And look, if we try and bat 198 overs, we could probably win the game. But also if you try and just think “right, just try and bat 198 overs” you’re probably going to get bowled out anyway.
“I was happy with the way we went about that chase. That’s exactly how we play cricket. When an opportunity presents itself and it’s a pressure situation, I think that generally brings the best out of people. It doesn’t always work. There were a lot of times when we were on top of India and then India were able to produce something that then put them back on top.”
This kind of attitude can mean bad news for India. To avoid trouble they should first of all try to bat longer. It is something head coach Rahul Dravid feels wasn’t achieved to a satisfying degree at Visakhapatnam, especially in the second innings. “There was enough time in the game for us to just bat. I don’t think we had decided to set any target, to be honest,” said Dravid.
About the first innings, Dravid felt India fell short of a par score. “I will honestly say that I think we left a few runs on the board in both innings. You know, in both innings I felt we could have got, certainly in the first innings here, 396 I thought was under par. You win a toss. We have one guy with a double hundred, you should be pushing 450, 475 in these conditions.”
Yashasvi Jaiswal’s 209 and Jasprit Bumrah’s incisive bowling in the first innings may have allowed India to bat again sitting on a big lead but the second innings was far from ideal. “I don’t think there was any stage of the game where we felt we could actually force the play,” said Dravid. “As soon as we thought we could force the play we lost a couple of wickets. Like if we had got to tea at 250/4 instead of 230/6. We just start getting comfortable and then we lose a couple of wickets and then you are thinking “oh”.
“After we lost the first couple of wickets, we soaked up the pressure really well. But we couldn’t capitalise on it enough. And then the same thing happened when we got another 80-run partnership (89 between Shubman Gill and Axar Patel). If we had made that into 120-130 then I’m sure we would have probably thought slightly differently.”
This only shows how despite winning, India are left with some regret. England, on the other hand, have none. When you have such diametrically opposite schools of thought pitted against each other, it won’t be difficult to predict that this series has more twists and turns to come.
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