Bat’s how India lost it!

The justconcluded Pataudi Trophy series was viewed as Indiarsquos best chance to break the streak of unsuccessful attempts to win a Test rubber in EnglandUntil 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 378run targetIndiarsquos 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 standin captain Jasprit Bumrahrsquos first innings blitz was he couldnrsquot come close to the 35 runs he extracted off one Stuart Broad over The occurrence was a freak one if you donrsquot want to call it a flukeThe 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 oppositionA team needs fast bowlers to win games but you canrsquot 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 bowlersIt wonrsquot be fair to be overcritical of Bumrahrsquos captaincy but the need for bowling variety when the opposition batsmen are in a comfort zone should have dawned on the firsttimerA lot of factors can be attributed to Indiarsquos loss but the centuries from Root and Bairstow must figure at the top of that list Their partnership was like a nonstop downpour after the openers Alex Lees and Zak Crawley provided the warning showers Ben Stokesrsquos comment about England welcoming a fourth innings chase came to mind every now and again like thunder and lightningThe Indian bowling was never expected to be so blunt so bland even on an unresponsive pitch Bumrahrsquos skills came to the fore but then every six balls donrsquot constitute a wickettaking 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 wasteTuesday 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 serieswinning team in England but it was not to beThat victorious 2007 English summer seems ages agomdashbefore the Indian Premier League was born before MS Dhoni became captain of India and when Indiarsquos 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 oneWhile India brood over the loss at Edgbaston where they dominated three of the five days the two Virat Kohlidriven Test match wins in 2021 at Lordrsquos and The Oval shouldnrsquot be forgotten England were not the same united force then and Indiarsquos bowling had a sharper edge to itThere is no disgrace in the latest failure India didnrsquot 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 seriesInterestingly 50 years ago a fivematch series ended up 22 in the 1972 Ashes fought between Ray Illingworthrsquos England and Australia led by Ian Chappell in his first full Test series as captainEngland clinched the opening Test at Manchester with Australia hitting back at Lordrsquos thanks to Bob Massiersquos 16 wickets on Test debut and Greg Chappellrsquos 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 wouldnrsquot 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 didnrsquot figure in the XI On the other hand the playing pack included five Western AustraliansIt was a hardfought 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 didnrsquot opt for that celebration but their willows had already been given a swingmiddayrsquos group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance He tweets ClaytonMurzelloSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper