Rory Burns' gift of a wicket undid almost two hours of work - a generosity England cannot...

[ASFN Admin]

It was the 24th over of the series, and Rory Burns and Dom Sibley had already done what no touring side to India had managed since March 2017: mustered a 50 opening partnership for the first wicket. Now, with a shimmy down the wicket, and a nonchalant drive through mid-on for four against Ravichandran Ashwin, Burns confirmed England’s fine start with the shot of the morning. India vs England, first Test: live scoreboard Tosses are seldom more advantageous to win. The Chepauk wicket was flat and the weather pristine. The conditions to bat could scarcely have been more benign. As India tinkered - bringing on Ashwin as early as the eighth over, switching ends for Jasprit Bumrah after only three overs, while Ashwin then switched his angle of attack - England’s main threat seemed to come from their rickety running between the wickets. Save for Burns being shelled on one by Rishabh Pant, missing a tough chance with his outstretched glove, the two had batted without alarm. And so, unobtrusively the two had pricked the first tenet of India’s recent impregnability at home: taking early wickets. Since November 2017, the average opening pair from touring teams in India averaged only 10 from 22 innings, such has been the potency of India’s new-ball attack. There was nothing showy about the openers’ approach, and nor did there need to be. The shot which brought up their 50 stand, Burns’ flick for two, encapsulated their approach. Minimal lateral movement allowed Burns and Sibley to leave deliveries outside off stump safely alone; they then efficiently clipped straight deliveries away to the on side, eschewing risk. Against spin, they both made a concerted effort to be more decisive in their footwork - either getting right forward to neutralise the spin, or right back to have a chance to react to it. For a sense of how important their alliance, consider that India have only lost a sole Test at home, out of 34, since England’s remarkable heist in 2012. That was in Pune against Australia in 2017: also, not coincidentally, the last time that an overseas opening pair had put on a half-century stand together. It had been almost 10 full years since any touring openers had survived an entire morning together. The delivery after Burns’ imperious boundary, Ashwin switched from around to over the wicket: a sign that his conventional line of attack to left-handers was not working. Ashwin’s first three deliveries with this approach brought no scintilla of threat. But to the next, Burns moved to reverse sweep, enticed by a gap at point. The length and pace of the delivery did not suit the shot, and the ball reared up off his glove to offer Pant a facile catch. Ashwin is a wonderful bowler but that cannot disguise how Burns’ wicket was, to borrow from tennis parlance, an unforced error. The maddening, epic scope of Test cricket is that advantages are hard-won but easily lost. Now, Virat Kohli sensed an opportunity. Bumrah was promptly whisked back into the attack, and needed only four balls to snare Dan Lawrence lbw for a duck. Almost two hours of work had been undone in two overs. It was generosity of a sort that England cannot afford: on a similar wicket in the last Test in Chennai, England scored 477 - but India replied with 759/7 declared, and England lost by an innings. More than anything, this was a reminder of the brutality of Test cricket in India. England had cruised for the first hour and 45 minutes - and yet, as India’s players walked off buoyant 15 minutes later, they did so having claimed the session’s honours.

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