Image Credit- AP
You may argue that there’s nothing novel about
Bazball. Still, there’s something particularly alluring about the series that
lies ahead of us. Not only is England coming with a strategy that worked well
in their two previous away campaigns in Pakistan and New Zealand last winter,
but a lot of the action that will take place in these five Test matches was
practiced in both of their most recent matches against India, which were at
home and away in 2021 and 2022—both in defeat and in victory.
Upon initial observation, a great deal has changed for
England since their previous Test series in India during the Covid-19 pandemic
in February and March of 2021. Symbolically speaking, Rory Burns and Dom
Sibley’s “look before you leap” combination has no place at the top
of the list.
But the atmosphere of stultifying despair that had
been established at the end of that series has also vanished. It’s easy to
forget that, entering the second Test of that India trip, England had won six
straight Tests in Asia.
The events that followed were instructive in a variety
of ways. The three defeats England suffered in the last three Test matches, in
Chennai and Ahmedabad, started an incredibly miserable ten-month run of just
one victory in 17 games. This run was undoubtedly made worse by the
restrictions of the Covid bubbles, but it ended with the Ashes crushing 4-0 the
following winter, which solidified Root’s unavoidable dismissal as captain.
Regardless of the public perception, India has
firsthand experience, having experienced both of the Covid-interrupted Test
tour’s legs in 2021 and 2022, that England’s recent upsurge in form is no
coincidence.
The hosts were routinely intimidated by an excellent
India team playing in the unwavering image of its then-captain, Virat Kohli, in
the first four Tests of that series in 2021 (despite a James Anderson swing
masterclass at Headingley). This was especially evident in their decisive
victory in the second Test, at Lord’s, when England’s resolve broke in the
third and fourth innings. A year and a half later, those same shy also-rans
were stalking 378 at Edgbaston at nearly five an over to square the series in fine
fashion.
When things were going well in the first Test match in
Chennai, England performed a clear-cut masterclass. This was demonstrated by
Root’s brilliant 218 – his third huge hundred in as many England victories –
and then by a bowling effort that embodied the kind of hand-to-hand fighting
that has come to represent the Bazball era when faced with a formidable 578.
All of which does not imply that England is in a
better position to escape the disaster that has befallen them—as well as almost
every other visiting team—since their most recent series victory in India in
2012–13. However, the victory in Chennai three years ago was only the second of
India’s only three home losses in 46 games since the beginning of 2013, and if
it held the seeds of a plan that would remain dormant for the remainder of the
tour, then the way that Rohit and Pant crushed the series India’s way may be
even more instructive for the days ahead.