Ahmedabad has suffered a steep drop recently in the number of vultures
circling the city, but those not affected by urbanisation and poisoning
will find plenty to encourage them as long as England's malady against
spin bowling persists.
India took England's last seven first-innings wickets by tea, with their spinners R Ashwin and Pragyan Ojha
hunting down eight wickets in the innings, and as the follow-on was
confirmed, a lone vulture loomed overhead as if in expectation of a
quick kill.
England sorely needed a remedy second time around that might not save
the Test but would pronounce themselves still redoubtable opponents in
the three Tests to follow. Alastair Cook
and Nick Compton provided it with a contemplative, unbroken stand of
111 as the spinners failed to find the same purchase second time around.
India still lead by 219 runs with two days remaining, but here at last
was an England batting pair, neither of them natural players of spin,
working earnestly to come up with their own individual solutions. Cook
was a captain leading by example, the more expansive as he picked off
the bad balls; Compton, although more cautious, showed impressive
resolve on debut.
Ojha came close to dismissing both, having Compton dropped in the gully
on 23 by Virat Kohli, a tough chance by his boots, and seeing Aleem Dar
refuse a convincing lbw appeal when Cook was 37. The BCCI will not
accept DRS until it is 100 per cent efficient. Instead they got Dar, a
fine umpire having a bad day, operating at a percentage he will wish to
remain unrecorded.
England have no problems with spin. Psychologically, they have to say
that. The evidence, though, remained contrary in their first innings as
Ashwin and Ojha, taking four wickets on an exacting morning, became the
latest combination to harry them to destruction in Asia.
Ojha, looping up his left-arm slows at a gentle pace, bowled Kevin
Pietersen and had Ian Bell caught in the deep first ball - one of the
most misconceived dismissals by an England batsman since Mike Gatting
had a dabble at the reverse sweep in the 1987 World Cup final.
Ashwin accounted for Cook, whose accession to the England Test captaincy
has come at a most unpromising juncture. Cook's methodical resistance
took him to 41 before Ashwin caused him to reach for one that turned and
edge to Virender Sehwag at first slip.
It was a gruelling morning for two highly-experienced umpires and with
no review system in place the fear of giving a faulty dismissal in
favour of the spinners seemingly soon crept into the consciousness.
Patel, on 4, looked stone dead, when he played across a delivery from
Ashwin and was struck in front of middle. You did not need a predictive
path, which the BCCI disallows television from showing, to know that Dar
had erred. When Dar did give out Patel lbw to Umesh Yadav, in a
flirting appearance of pace bowling, you did not need a predictive path
to know that the ball was slipping down the leg side.
There had been enough clues on the second evening, never mind the past
year, to suggest that England would face a troubled morning and so it
proved to be. Ashwin and Ojha bowled splendidly on an increasingly
responsive surface, finding more turn than Graeme Swann had achieved in
what was virtually a single-handed assault for England on the first two
days.
Right from the outset, England were up against it. Pietersen was at his
most frenzied, bent upon using his feet to the spinners, but if he was
constantly on the move it was not necessarily in the right direction. He
nearly yorked himself in Ojha's first over and had to dive back into
the crease as Gautam Gambhir tried to run him out from silly point. In
Ojha's next over, he charged again and MS Dhoni missed a leg-side
stumping.
When umpire Tony Hill turned down an lbw appeal from Ojha, he faced an
interrogation from bowler and captain alike as to whether Pietersen had
played a shot, probably on the grounds that a player of his quality
could not conceivably miss the ball by such a distance.
It all ended when Pietersen, this time remaining in his crease, tried to
stay inside the line of the ball and was bowled, missing one that
turned only slightly by quite a distance. Left-arm spin gets into his
head and likes what it finds.
Bell's first-ball dismissal was mental frailty dressed up as aggressive
intent, an attempt to dance down the wicket to strike Ojha down the
ground ending in a mis-hit off the bottom of the bat to Sachin Tendulkar
at mid-off. To call it rabbit-in-the-headlights stuff was an insult to
rabbits. It has yet to be proved that a rabbit sits in its burrow
proclaiming: "I am going to be a tough rabbit, I am going to be an
adventurous rabbit. I have no idea about the speed of the car or the lie
of the road, I am going to take on this car from the start, come what
may." Or maybe they do and they are the ones that get splattered.
Cook and Patel, although finding few scoring opportunities, did at least
have the wherewithal to try to unravel India's spin-bowling mysteries.
Cook's tendency to fall over on leg stump was probed, but he survived
it, swept with certainty at times, and was the one England player who
could be dismissed with pride intact.
England could also have lost Matt Prior to an inviting full toss when he
pulled straight to deep-square leg where Zaheer Khan was unable to hold
a running catch. England were at least spared that embarrassment.
Prior marshalled some late-order resistance against the old ball - 94
for the last three wickets - until he became the fifth victim for Ojha,
bowled seeking a boundary to raise his fifty. Swann, the best player of
spin in England's lower order, found himself coming in at No. 11 and
faced two balls, his chief involvement to check with India if they
intended to make England bat again.
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