England v Bangladesh: 1st Test, Day 3 - The Sting in England’s Tail Augers Well for India

 

England v Bangladesh: 1^st Test, Day 3

The Sting in England’s Tail Augers Well for India

October 22nd 2016

 

First the good news: England are in a strong position to win the Test, something that India and South Africa failed to do in Bangladesh last year.

Now the bad news: it only came after another horrific top-order collapse that left the match in the balance again.

At first sight, normal service. England established a useful lead of 45 in a low-scoring Test. However, with Bangladesh 221-4 just before the Close last night, only 72 behind and looking comfortable, it could so easily have been 100 behind. When Ben Stokes took Mushfiqur Rahim’s wicket just before the Close last night, it was getting close to desperation time. Even so, Bangladesh must have been expecting to earn a lead of some kind. Little could anyone imagine that Moeen Ali would start the morning with a bang taking the sort of wicket that only Moeen seems to take: Shakib Al Hasan, who many would argue is the best player that Bangladesh have ever produced, gave him the charge, second ball of the morning and wonder of wonders, Jonny Bairstow made the stumping.

The opprobrium of Shakib has been almost universal – it set the tone for a horrendous Bangladesh capitulation – but it is just an extension of the tactics that we have seen so often, particularly from Asian batsmen: go after Moeen and try to destroy his confidence. Had the stroke been better executed, it would have been a six second ball of the day and the momentum would have been right back with Bangladesh. Like Adil Rashid, Moeen can be expensive and give you a bumper bag of liquorice allsorts, but he also makes things happen and takes too many wickets for it to be pure chance. Batsmen look at him and think that it is their lucky day if this is the best that England can offer, but keep falling to him.

Moeen’s last 5 Tests have produced 398 runs at 56.9 and 14 wickets, albeit at the slightly inflated cost of 41.9. And were it not for the fact that Ben Stokes has set himself up for it, he would have a real shout at the Man-of-the-Match award (and may yet win it). England are fortunate to have Moeen and Ben Stokes (250 runs at 35.7 and 17 wickets at 18.2 in his last 5 Tests) to provide stability and, on occasion, a substantial sting in the tail for England when 4 or 5 wickets have fallen cheaply, as they have in both innings here.

With Adil Rashid giving support with the wicket of Shafiul Islam, just as it looked as if Bangladesh had weathered the early storm, the new ball in the hands of Ben Stokes proved to be a catch-weight contest against the tail. It left Stokes with the extraordinary figures of 14-5-26-4 and England’s seamers bowling a combined 29 overs for just 53 runs.

What we are seeing is a pattern: the ball spins a lot when hard and batting is really tough for the first 30 overs with the new ball; then, as it softens, batting becomes substantially easier. England were 21-3 in the 1^st innings and 28-3 in the 2^nd. England’s top 4 have registered just one score of more than 15 in 8 attempts in the match, which is not good enough. Much of the scrutiny will fall on Gary Ballance (1 & 9) and many will wonder if England might not have done better to give his place to Zafar Ansari, whose chances of a debut in the 2^nd Test must be improving by the day. A graphic published by the BBC, showing the constant and alarming downward trend in Ballance’s runs per Test over his career has done him no favours and shown – quite literally, graphically – his continuing decline in form. Similarly, there will be those who wonder if, given what has happened, Hameed’s grit at the top of the order might have been preferable to Duckett’s bluster. However, now that England have gone down the Duckett route they will most certainly give him a few Tests. They will be hoping that Duckett helps to give England the explosive starts that they been missing since Marcus Trescothick retired from Tests.

The best news for England is that they are showing that they can deal with a sharply spinning ball, with noisy fielders crowding the bat putting excessive pressure on the umpires, with the knack of getting their DRS challenges right and, even if they are 4 or 5 down for not very much, can come back and make a competitive total. One or two of the tremendously dismissive Indian fans may just be wondering about their predictions of a totally uncompetitive massacre and a 5-0 scoreline. Similarly, the seamers are managing to get some reverse swing, whereas the Bangladesh attack, more used to the conditions, is achieving very little. We even had the slightly bizarre spectacle of Bangladesh bringing back a seamer, seemingly to rest its spinners!

Speaking of DRS, this has been an extraordinary match: 19 reviews in the match (one more will make this the Test with the highest number of reviews ever), 9 decisions overturned (a record), 6 of them from Umpire Dharmasena, who will be dreaming of players in white making T-shapes for some time after this Test.

England need Woakes and Broad to hang around for a while in the morning. Alternatively, if Stuart Broad can remember the persona who, in the past, changed innings by slogging a quick 30 or 40, that will also do nicely. If they reach 248, they will condemn Bangladesh to make the highest score of the match to win. 254 would push the victory target up to 300. And 272 all out would set Bangladesh the challenge of making the highest ever successful chase at this ground to win.

In summary: the key numbers for England:
217 - Bangladesh's highest ever successful 4th innings chase (215 was the target).
248 - England will set Bangladesh the highest total of the match to win.
254 - Bangladesh will need 300 to win.
272 - Bangladesh will need to beat the highest ever successful chase at this ground to win.
Only 28 times in Test cricket has a side chased 300 or more successfully to win.