India v England, 2012-13
George Dobell
Test matches (4): India 1, England 2
One-day internationals (5): India 3, England 2
Twenty20 internationals (2): India 1, England 1
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England tour of India
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England left India celebrating a victory for the history books. And yet, in the aftermath of their nine-wicket defeat in the First Test at Ahmedabad, it had been hard to avoid a sense of gloomy inevitability. Ranged against them, apparently, were all their old failings - and some recent ones too: scars from the 3-0 defeat in the UAE by Pakistan and their slow bowlers were still raw. They had not won a series in Asia, Bangladesh excepted, for 12 years; and they had not won in India since 1984-85, when David Gower's side had become the first - and, until now, only - visiting team to beat them in a Test series after falling behind.
There were doubts, too, about the spirit within the squad. Kevin Pietersen had only just returned on a short-term central contract, having been omitted from the final Test of the home series against South Africa and the World Twenty20 squad following revelations about his relationship with his team-mates. And despite Pietersen's return, itself a feather in the cap for the new captain, Alastair Cook, there remained selection issues. With the retirement of Andrew Strauss, England had drafted in as opener Nick Compton, an uncapped 29-year-old accustomed to the No. 3 role in county cricket. The No. 6 slot remained a problem, while an injury in the opening warm-up game to Steven Finn, now a first-choice bowler, especially in these conditions, threatened to disrupt their plans from the start.
Neither could there be any doubting India's determination to avenge their humiliating 4-0 defeat in England in 2011. Talk of payback featured heavily, with the Indian players making it clear England would find life significantly harder in alien conditions. During their three warm-up matches, the tourists were denied exposure to quality opposition. In particular, they faced very little slow bowling, and none of it high-class, before attracting an avalanche of spin in the Tests.
When Andy Flower, England's head coach, acknowledged after Ahmedabad that he had erred in omitting Monty Panesar, and asked for judgment on his team to be suspended until the end of the series, it seemed he was talking more in hope than expectation. Not for the first time, however, Flower was vindicated: by emulating Gower's side and turning deficit into victory, England pulled off one of their least expected series wins. For Flower's opposite number, Duncan Fletcher - who during his time in charge of England had never won a series against India - it was a particularly unpalatable pill.
In the event, India's tactics backfired, as Cook guardedly admitted he hoped they might. While England's top order were warming up almost exclusively against an assortment of seamers and part-time slow bowlers, they were also spending confidence-boosting time at the crease. India's captain M. S. Dhoni kept insisting, to the point of obsession, on turning tracks, designed to capitalise on the two teams' perceived strengths and weaknesses. But it became clear that - once Panesar had been picked - it was England who had the slow bowlers better equipped to exploit the conditions. And while India persisted with the theory that England's batsmen could not play spin, they went into games with poorly balanced attacks, including one seamer and three spinners at Mumbai, then - in a dreadful miscalculation - one and four at Nagpur.
At both Mumbai and Kolkata, Tests were played on recently used pitches, although Dhoni's attempts to put pressure on groundsmen to comply with his demands met with mixed results. Certainly any implied threats from the BCCI about the future of Kolkata's curator fell on deaf ears: Prabir Mukherjee, a fearless octogenarian, was long past the stage where such intimidation offered any concern, and provided a fine Test pitch. Only the deathly slow surface at Nagpur proved unsuitable for a format fighting for space in a crowded marketplace.
As Dhoni's stock fell, despite his face-saving - though not series-salvaging - innings of 99 at Nagpur, Cook's reputation rocketed. Even amid the rubble of England's rout at Ahmedabad, he had sown the seeds of their resurgence with a second-innings century that proved to his colleagues it was possible to prosper against India's spinners. In typically undemonstrative fashion, he went on to score centuries in each of the first three Tests, making him the first man to register hundreds in his first five in charge (he had scored one in each of the two Tests in Bangladesh in 2009-10, when he stood in as captain for the rested Strauss). Cook's air of calm, whether in adversity or triumph, his pragmatic approach to coaxing the best out of the eclectic mix of characters under him, and his desire to succeed meant the post-Strauss transition took place more smoothly than anyone could have dreamed.
| England were fitter and quicker than India in the field; off it, they appeared more united | |||
Where once he had been an accumulator, satisfied with cutting, pulling and nudging, Cook now showed he had developed a range of strokes to prosper in any conditions. He swept judiciously, a rarity among Englishmen, used his feet precisely, drove sweetly, and demonstrated a willingness to hit over the top. Had umpire Kumar Dharmasena not sawn him off twice at Nagpur - before apologising - Cook would surely have surpassed Ken Barrington's 51-year-old England record for the most runs in a series in India (594), although he was gracious enough to admit he had received the rub of the green a couple of times; he finished instead with 562, though in four Tests to Barrington's five. And at Kolkata he became the first England player to rack up 23 Test centuries, and the only man from any nation to pass 7,000 runs before the age of 28. It was monumental stuff.
But Cook's contribution started long before the team departed for a pre-tour training camp in Dubai. It was partly his determination that helped find a solution to the Pietersen episode after he was left out of the initial touring party, and it was his alliance with Flower that rammed home a no-excuses mindset. Where previous England teams in India had been daunted by the conditions, the travel, the food, the weight of history and just about everything else, this one made a point of embracing the culture and the conditions. Almost without exception - and despite some justification at times - they never breathed a word of complaint. Unsurprisingly, Cook's presence as a tactician grew too, after a shaky start on the first day of the series. By contrast, Dhoni looked one-dimensional, and England privately noted his tendency to change the field in response to the previous ball.
Where Cook led from the front, others gradually followed. At Ahmedabad, only Matt Prior - a beacon of selfless energy and skill throughout - and Swann rallied round their captain. Even at Mumbai, the excellence of a few compensated for the travails of the rest: Pietersen, with an innings of rare genius, turned the tide of the series, before Panesar, with his best match figures in Tests, joined Swann to claim the best analysis - 19 for 323 - by a pair of England spinners in more than 54 years. Panesar and Swann ended up with 37 wickets at 25 apiece, and a combined strike-rate of 60, easily outperforming their Indian counterparts, Pragyan Ojha and the desperately disappointing Ravichandran Ashwin, who between them managed 34 wickets at nearly 40, with a strike-rate of 86. Seldom, if ever, had overseas spinners so dominated in India.
England were fitter and quicker than India in the field; off it, they appeared more united. Ian Bell, who missed the Second Test in a fruitless attempt to get home in time to witness the birth of his first child, struggled with the bat until a final-day hundred at Nagpur. But he had already pulled off a direct hit from midwicket to run out Cheteshwar Pujara, India's prolific No. 3, at Kolkata, then a superb catch at short leg - admittedly off the batsman's elbow - to dismiss him at Nagpur. Compton, without ever nailing the definitive innings he craved, added solidity, four times in succession putting on 50 or more with Cook; not since Michael Vaughan and Marcus Trescothick in 2002 had the same pair of English openers achieved such a feat. Their overall record - 493 runs at 70 - was 20 better than India's experienced pair of Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir, whose running between the wickets was a liability.
Compton, Jonathan Trott and Finn - in his only Test of the series - weighed in at Kolkata. And at Nagpur, Joe Root, who made a composed debut, could also feel satisfied. James Anderson's contribution was telling. After an impotent start, he bowled with greater pace than for some time, gained swing - both reverse and conventional - and extracted movement off unhelpful pitches. He was later described by Dhoni as "the major difference" between the sides; his haul of 12 wickets at 30 apiece barely did him justice.
But the tour was not an unqualified success. Stuart Broad, the new vice-captain, struggled with injury and illness, and was dropped for Kolkata amid suggestions from bowling coach David Saker that he had to "front up". Tim Bresnan, like Broad, finished wicketless, and looked bereft of pace and confidence. Samit Patel's batting failed to compensate for the limitations of his left-arm spin. Dropped for Nagpur after two matches in which Panesar's presence rendered his bowling redundant, he finished with doubts over his Test future.
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However, it was India who had more headaches. Defeated at home for the first time since 2004-05 - and for only the fourth time in 40 bilateral series since losing to Gower's England - this was a result to prick the bubble that had been shielding them from the harsh wind of reality. While whitewashes in England and Australia had been excused - erroneously, in the main - on the grounds that conditions had been manufactured to thwart them, the stain on their proud home record could not be so easily ignored.
There were several issues, not least the paucity of fast-bowling options after the dangerous Umesh Yadav picked up a back injury that ruled him out after Ahmedabad; Zaheer Khan faded, and was dropped, five Test wickets short of 300. The lack of fitness among their leading players was damning; so too the decline of Sachin Tendulkar. Only once before had he averaged under 20 in a series of three Tests or more, while 76 of his 112 runs came in one innings, at Kolkata. Even there, he laboured unedifyingly for almost every one. His announcement soon after the series of his retirement from one-day cricket felt as if it didn't go far enough.
Meanwhile, the recall at Mumbai of Harbhajan Singh - who had taken only 18 first-class wickets at 40 each since his previous Test, 16 months earlier - and at Nagpur of Piyush Chawla, a legspinner averaging over 40 in his previous three years of first-class cricket, underlined the sense of a nation not boasting strength in depth so much as mediocrity. It had been years since the cupboard looked so bare.
There was some room for optimism. Pujara, unstoppable in the first two Tests, hinted he could yet be a worthy successor to Rahul Dravid, before falling away as umpiring errors and the running of his colleagues conspired against him. Virat Kohli belatedly provided a reminder of his class with a century at Nagpur, while Ojha - despite fading as the series progressed - finished level with Swann as the leading wicket-taker.
But it was telling that, even as Dhoni asked for patience for his team in transition, he admitted the pain of defeat was "not even close" to what he had experienced when India were eliminated from the 2007 World Cup. Perhaps their failure to win the two-match Twenty20 series - an unwanted dessert after a satisfying main course, staged just before England returned home for Christmas - stung more. A second-string England side lacking the rested Pietersen and Swann, plus the injured Broad and Finn, came away with a 1-1 draw. Eoin Morgan, captain in Broad's place, hit the last ball of the second match, at the Wankhede, for six to deny India even minor consolation.
The refusal of the BCCI to accept the Decision Review System led, predictably, to renewed scrutiny of umpiring errors and some poor on-field behaviour. Perhaps the absence of technology's safety net played on the officials' minds, with as skilled a judge as Aleem Dar enduring an awful game at Mumbai. While the BCCI's reservations over ball-tracking technology were at least understandable, many of the errors that affected both sides would have been simply corrected by use of the replay facility. The board's stance looked stubborn rather than principled. The same might have been said for their attitude towards the media.
The decision to withhold accreditation from several photo-only agencies, and demand extra funds from the BBC and Sky - both broadcast rights-holders - briefly threatened a partial media blackout. Sky opted to commentate from their base in London and rely on the BCCI's live feed, while most UK publications refused to condone what they saw as an attempt to restrict press freedom, and boycotted live photos entirely; the BBC's extra costs were paid for by a third party, and they covered the series as planned. The BCCI justified their stance on the grounds that providing floor space for broadcasters incurred extra costs; and some photo agencies, they argued, sold their pictures for commercial gain that had little to do with editorial coverage. There was a little truth in both claims, but it was hard to believe that any short-term benefits of the BCCI's policy would not be vastly outweighed by the long-term dilution in the value of media rights.
There were concerns, too, about a national board providing TV coverage and still pictures, and employing commentators. It took 40 minutes for Star Cricket, the host broadcasters, to show a replay of Jonny Bairstow's dismissal at Mumbai after he was wrongly given out caught via the grille of Gambhir's helmet at silly point. Similarly, an unsuccessful appeal against Trott at Nagpur - arguably the key moment of the fourth day - and the subsequent show of dissent from India's fielders, led by Kohli, was omitted from the first highlights package. Meanwhile, an incident in the First Test, when Trott said he was unsure whether he had taken a slip catch cleanly (replays categorically showed he hadn't) was held against England for the remainder of the series.
While it is true that a tour of India does not present the challenges - in terms of hotels and travel - it once did, the record books underline how difficult it is to win there. Many fine teams have travelled to India in hope, and many have left disappointed. The hosts had lost the likes of Dravid, Anil Kumble and V. V. S. Laxman, but still called on nine of the men who had led them to the top of the world rankings. No visiting team had won back-to-back Tests in India since South Africa early in 2000; England had not done so since 1976-77. By any standards, victory ranked as one of the most impressive feats in their Test history.
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Ali Martin writes: England's approach to the one-day series in the New Year was a reflection of their priorities. With the 2013 Champions Trophy being held in England and the 2015 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, five matches in Asian conditions were always going to sit low on their list. Swann, Anderson and Trott were all rested, while Broad missed the first three games to attend to his sore heel, then the last two when his flight was grounded at Heathrow by snow. Even so, victory in the Tests, and their No. 1 ranking in 50-over cricket, meant England were tipped to fare better than the sides which suffered 5-0 thrashings in India in 2008-09 and 2011-12.
Ashley Giles took on his first assignment as England's limited-overs coach, following team director Andy Flower's workload reduction. There were international bows for new grounds at Rajkot, Ranchi and Dharmasala as the Indian board used second-tier locations rather than the big urban centres. And it worked, with each sold-out venue providing a unique match in a range of conditions. For England, it was also a first look at the new 50-over playing regulations. The fast bowlers could bowl two bouncers per over. No more than four fielders (down from five) were now allowed outside the circle during standard overs, while a solitary five-over batting powerplay was to be started between the 11th and 36th overs following the initial ten; as a result, the batting side tended to opt for wickets in hand followed by a late push.
India's 3-2 victory, built on English collapses in the second and third games, was deserved, even if all five tosses proved match-winning, an advantage most pronounced in the series clincher at Mohali. While weakened of their own volition, England saw two men step up: James Tredwell took 11 wickets at 18, while Root averaged 54 with the bat. But Jade Dernbach went at 7.34 runs an over and was dropped for the New Zealand tour, along with wicketkeeper Craig Kieswetter, who struggled down the order. Pietersen played his first one-day international cricket since coming out of his short-lived retirement, while Bell finished the series as he had the Tests - with a classy unbeaten century.
Match reports for
Tour Match: India A v England XI at Brabourne, Oct 30-Nov 1, 2012
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Tour Match: Mumbai A v England XI at DY Patil, Nov 3-5, 2012
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Tour Match: Haryana v England XI at Ahmedabad, Nov 8-11, 2012
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1st Test: India v England at Ahmedabad, Nov 15-19, 2012
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2nd Test: India v England at Wankhede, Nov 23-26, 2012
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3rd Test: India v England at Eden Gardens, Dec 5-9, 2012
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4th Test: India v England at Nagpur, Dec 13-17, 2012
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1st T20I: India v England at Pune, Dec 20, 2012
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2nd T20I: India v England at Wankhede, Dec 22, 2012
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Tour Match: India A v England XI at Delhi, Jan 6, 2013
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Tour Match: Delhi v England XI at Delhi, Jan 8, 2013
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1st ODI: India v England at Rajkot, Jan 11, 2013
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2nd ODI: India v England at Kochi, Jan 15, 2013
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3rd ODI: India v England at Ranchi, Jan 19, 2013
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4th ODI: India v England at Mohali, Jan 23, 2013
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5th ODI: India v England at Dharamsala, Jan 27, 2013
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