3 minute read
After criticism but then victory in the first Test, England coach Brendon McCullum has conceded his team made the wrong decision at the toss at the start of the second Test. A far bigger toss issue was however the massive great load of it the bowlers served up in each innings.
Maybe a team that wasn’t England could have batted out the final day to secure a draw. This seems to us a very minor issue compared to the bowling.
One of Ben Stokes’ greatest tricks has been persuading onlookers that England had some sort of a chance surprisingly long into this match. Previous deeds – like conceding 471 in the first innings of the first Test and winning – ghosted around compelling people to think twice about stating the bleeding obvious: that they were getting absolutely bloody hammered.
England had two stints in the field – the first and third innings of the match – and wouldn’t have bowled India out for under 500 in either of them. You really would have to be quite the batting side to concede 1,000 and win.
The new ball proved pretty important. According to Cricinfo, India took 15-300 with the various new balls at their disposal. It’s easy enough to work out from that how well they performed with the old one.
It therefore wasn’t the best pitch on which to play only one new ball bowler, as England did.
We flagged this before the series. Brydon Carse doesn’t normally open the bowling. He’s learning the role on the job. More experienced opening bowlers might also have fared badly. They may also have taken a wicket inside the first 20 overs, which could have steered the match in a slightly different direction.
The jarringly damning upshot was that England’s cow-cornered tiger, Shoaib Bashir, emerged as their most successful bowler – even though his match figures of 5-286 were the most expensive for England since 1950.
The other four frontliners managed…
- 2-142 – Chris Woakes
- 2-139 – Brydon Carse
- 4-212 – Josh Tongue
- 1-100 – Ben Stokes
We suppose you could, if you were so inclined, argue that Tongue’s wickets were taken at a lower average than Bashir’s.
Would you like to argue that? Feel free. What’s your point?
Extras
Speaking of big runs, in an incredible move, the captain declared on South Africa’s Wiaan Mulder when he was on 367 not out against Zimbabwe this morning – just 34 runs away from breaking the record of King Cricket himself.
It was an astonishing move that only becomes fractionally more comprehensible when you learn that the captain in question was Wiaan Mulder.
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The post Bazbowl: The toss doesn’t really matter if you then bowl a load of it first appeared on King Cricket.
