The test series concluded with India clinching their 10th consecutive win under the leadership of Virat Kohli and securing their place into the WTC final which is to be played in June later this year. The test series concluded with many questions answered and yet many unanswered and we will be looking at few of them here in this section of the analysis.
Firstly India had a lot of positives in the series which gave them advantage over the England team. It was the youngsters stepping up and taking the responsibility on their shoulders and perform when it mattered the most. A series of lot of personal milestones was this one which was between India and England.
In contrast, England team had a few positives on their side were the skipper himself led from the front with a fine knock of 218 runs in the first test to lead England to victory but unfortunately the graph of the team went down drastically. They lost 3 test matches in successions which totally seemed 1-sided games mostly.
Reasons for India clinching the Test Series:-
- Consistent playing 11: The Indian side did not have as many changes as the England team which gave them the right combination of settled players clear with their roles to play in contributing for the team. Except for the replacements of Bumrah and Kuldeep Yadav the team was consistent with the starting 11 throughout the series.
- Assessing the conditions: Indian side were a little better than England while assessing the conditions of the venues throughout the series which is almost half the job done while considering the most ideal playing 11.England might have messed up a little bit over here.
- Youngsters making a mark: This could be one of the major difference between both the teams if performance is a parameter for comparison here. For India it was the likes of Axar Patel who scalped 27 wickets in his Debut series with 4 fifers under his belt, Rishabh Pant scoring crucial runs and a ton in the 4th test and Washington Sundar who played a major role in crucial situations when it mattered the most.
Reasons for England failure in test series:
- Inconsistent Playing 11: England looked better in the 1st test with there playing 11 which won the game and got them ahead in the series. But when the same team lost the 2nd test it resulted in many changes in the playing 11. This resulted in loss of combination in the team and it could never settle and a void always seemed in there performances.
- Lack of spinners: Unlike the 1st 2 tests in Chennai there was no other spinner in the attack except Jack Leach who could trouble the Indian batsmen like they were troubled with the spin throughout the series. Skipper joe root did some bowling out there from the other End and even got a 5-wicket haul, But the effort was not enough to counter attack the Indian batsmen. This also proves that if a replacement was done instead of Moeen Ali then results wouldn’t have been so one-sided.inspite of experiencing the lethality of a spinner England never came up for a like to like replacement of Moeen Ali who had dominated the Indian Batsmen in the 1st 2 tests.
- Failing to Capitalize the toss: England won 3 out of there 4 tosses and couldn’t end up being benefitted by it as they failed to capitalize the advantage of toss which they got 3 out of 4 times. Except the first test England’s Graph drastically decreased and were no clues as to why it happened.
Can the Pitches at Chennai and Ahmedabad Be Rated as “POOR”?
Firstly a cricket pitch cannot be rated ‘Poor’ until there’s enough proof to back this ‘tag’ .It can only be so when there’s a unnatural behavior of the Pitch or it complies with the ‘Danger Play ‘. Secondly when both the teams struggle while batting it can be under that category. But none of these were the cases with neither Chennai nor Ahmedabad Pitches and instead English batsmen especially were deceived by the straighter ones rather than the one turning. So to call Pitch as one of the reason for Either India’s success or England’s defeat would be unfair as this isn’t true mostly.
Overall it was a Good series in which both the teams committed little errors , but team India were little smarter to learn from those Mistakes and comeback stronger. where as England seemed clueless after the 2nd test Defeat and resulted 3 consecutive losses for them though they were ahead in the series.