Batting first is generally the way to win Test matches in India, or so they say. The argument is that it gives you best use of pitches that tend to deteriorate as the contest goes on, so batting first and third is better than batting second and fourth. Sure enough, all the earlier games of this series went the way of the side winning the toss and choosing to bat.
But it is actually more nuanced than that. Assuming the side that bats first does not rack up such a huge total that they put themselves out of sight from early on, it is important that whoever bats first also makes good use of the third innings of the match.
This was actually where the first Test in Hyderabad was settled: England, trailing by a significant margin, battled their way to an impressive 420 in the third innings, and went on to conjure a win by 29 runs. At Visakhapatnam, India by scoring 255 did just enough to set up victory, while in Rajkot their 430 for four killed off any possibility of defeat, something reflected in England’s capitulation to their heaviest defeat (by margin of runs) since 1934.
All of which brings us to England’s second-innings performance in Ranchi. It was one of those situations where it appeared that they did not know how to play it. For all their talk of always taking the positive options, of staying “in the moment”, they appeared confused — distracted by the wider match situation.
Credit must go to India for the way they battled in the morning, managing through sheer bloody-mindedness to get within 46 of England’s total. England bowled with patience and discipline in the first hour but a doltish piece of fielding by Ollie Robinson proved pivotal; England grew frustrated, India were emboldened.
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Had England taken a lead of 100, as they might have done, they would have been in a strong position. India would have had to be less attacking and England could have batted with greater freedom, confident that if they managed to make 200 they would be very strongly placed. The whole dynamic would have been different.
We have seen this happen before in Tests fairly evenly poised at the halfway stage; the side that bats next must make the running and judge what sort of score they are aiming for. Every Englishman with a memory of Adelaide 2006 (when they led by 38 but were then skittled for 129) knows that.
Only last year, India fought back in similar fashion against Australia in Delhi where their last three wickets added 123 to take them to within one of Australia’s score. Ravichandran Ashwin then opened the bowling (as he did here) and stayed on until he and Ravindra Jadeja dismissed Australia for 113. They won with something to spare.
England may insist that they bat with freedom whatever the situation, and are not fazed by the wider picture, but this isn’t actually the case — and wasn’t the case here. Ben Duckett has often said he does not want to get out defending, but that was precisely how he got out here, propping forward to Ashwin.
Jonny Bairstow too, having been in pugnacious vein in the afternoon, played at his first ball with such timidity that you suspect he spent the tea interval thinking about how he must not mess up.
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The philosophy of this England team when it comes to batting is to not think too deeply, and trust instinct over calculation. This served them well when they were often batting last in the first year under Ben Stokes in 2022, and won six times chasing.
But they have always been less convincing in the third innings, perhaps because it does require some calculation to answer the question, “How much is enough?” And they have got into difficulties before, if never quite to the extent that they did here in losing seven wickets for 35.
In Multan last winter, they were close to putting the game beyond Pakistan’s reach when they tossed away their last five wickets for 19 and ended up sweating their way across the finishing line.
More damagingly, they badly lost their way in the first Ashes Test at Edgbaston, when they seemed more interested in showing off their funky approach and leaving themselves time to take ten wickets than putting pressure on Australia with a stiffer target. Joe Root skipping down the pitch to Nathan Lyon and being stumped typified their profligacy.
Explaining on Saturday night why he decided against trying to go to his hundred with a reverse scoop, Root said: “You don’t mess with the game.” It would be fair to say that England messed with the game that day at Edgbaston.
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It is telling that England perform worse in the third innings than any other, averaging fewer than 30 whereas they average 36.9 in the first innings, 36.6 in the second and 42.7 in the fourth.
It is a strange flaw. Perhaps it exposes the management’s refusal to issue too many instructions to the batting group. As Brendon McCullum said last week after the Rajkot defeat: “A general conversation about, ‘We need to do this next time,’ is detrimental to what you’re trying to achieve . . . That’s not how we want to live our lives or to run this environment.”
