Bat’s how India lost it!

England’s Joe Root and Jonathan Bairstow walk off smiling at the end of the fifth and final Test against India at Edgbaston, Birmingham, on Tuesday. Pic/Getty Images

The just-concluded Pataudi Trophy series was viewed as India's best chance to break the streak of unsuccessful attempts to win a Test rubber in England.

Until Monday evening, that dream was pretty much alive. Then came an ordinary second innings batting performance that had complacency written all over it and England were set a challenging yet gettable 378-run target.

India's second dig rode on a battling Cheteshwar Pujara trying his best to save his career and Rishabh Pant, who was hoping for an encore of the first innings. And no matter how spectacular stand-in captain Jasprit Bumrah's first innings blitz was, he couldn't come close to the 35 runs he extracted off one Stuart Broad over. The occurrence was a freak one, if you don't want to call it a fluke.

The team management drew some flak for not including Ravichandran Ashwin in the playing XI and fielding the fourth fast bowler (Shardul Thakur). Maybe, they read too much into the wet weather forecast, but as things panned out, Ashwin and Jadeja would have appeared less appetising to the opposition.

A team needs fast bowlers to win games, but you can't put the turning ball out of the equation. And Jadeja should have been in the thick of things when Mohammed Siraj ought to have been given a breather with Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow showing no signs of being troubled by the pace bowlers.

It won't be fair to be over-critical of Bumrah's captaincy, but the need for bowling variety when the opposition batsmen are in a comfort zone, should have dawned on the first-timer.

A lot of factors can be attributed to India's loss, but the centuries from Root and Bairstow must figure at the top of that list. Their partnership was like a non-stop downpour after the openers Alex Lees and Zak Crawley provided the warning showers. Ben Stokes's comment about England welcoming a fourth innings chase came to mind every now and again like thunder and lightning.

The Indian bowling was never expected to be so blunt, so bland even on an unresponsive pitch. Bumrah's skills came to the fore, but then every six balls don't constitute a wicket-taking over even for such gifted practitioners of fast bowling. The Englishmen appeared to use the pace to their advantage and drove along; energy spent by Indian bowlers on the short balls was a sheer waste.

Tuesday witnessed yet another Indian failure to win a series in England. The last Indian Test captain to lay his hands on the silverware in that part of the world was their current head coach Rahul Dravid. Indeed, he would become the first Indian to captain and coach a series-winning team in England, but it was not to be.

That victorious 2007 English summer seems ages ago - before the Indian Premier League was born, before MS Dhoni became captain of India and when India's Fab Four of Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman were still scoring big runs. What followed were sans prize summers in 2011, 2014, 2018 and the current one.

While India brood over the loss at Edgbaston where they dominated three of the five days, the two Virat Kohli-driven Test match wins in 2021 at Lord's and The Oval shouldn't be forgotten. England were not the same united force then and India's bowling had a sharper edge to it.
There is no disgrace in the latest failure. India didn't have Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul while Kohli was at least scoring half centuries the last time he was in England. And if there is one big satisfaction, it is the fact that India drew the series.

Interestingly, 50 years ago, a five-match series ended up 2-2 in the 1972 Ashes, fought between Ray Illingworth's England and Australia led by Ian Chappell in his first full Test series as captain.

England clinched the opening Test at Manchester with Australia hitting back at Lord's thanks to Bob Massie's 16 wickets on Test debut and Greg Chappell's masterly 131. The third Test at Trent Bridge was drawn before the hosts outwitted Australia at Leeds where the pitch was infected by a fungus called Fusarium. The Aussies felt they were dudded, but their captain wouldn't have that come in the way of their focus for the final Test at The Oval. Like the recent Test, a selection issue cropped up. Australia decided to drop their star batsman Doug Walters, who was short of runs in the series. For the first time in their Test history, a New South Wales player didn't figure in the XI. On the other hand, the playing pack included five Western Australians.

It was a hard-fought Test that the visitors won by five wickets. When the target was reached, Paul Sheahan and Rodney Marsh, the unbeaten batsmen, swung their bats in joy while making their way to the pavilion. Root and Bairstow didn't opt for that celebration, but their willows had already been given a swing.

mid-day's group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance. He tweets @ClaytonMurzello

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