This England series is promising to be the most exciting played in India. The teams know how Bazball can succeed as well as how it fails. That knowledge will be important over the next three Tests as each team begins to move closer to the style the other plays in. England might learn that sometimes defence is the better part of valour while India could abandon some of its overcautious approach. It will be fun to watch the process.
England had said they would chase 600 even. But it is usually prudent to have an anchor around whom the others can play. Bazball ought not to mean jettisoning past lessons. On a fourth-day track that was still kind to batters, Joe Root would have been the key in the pre-Bazball days. Here he played with the desperation of a schoolboy trying to impress his coach. As if to compensate, Ben Stokes attempted a run in that casual manner peculiar to those who don’t want to appear desperate. Both paid the price.
At the end of the first Test which England won, skipper Stokes said he had learnt from his counterpart. Well might Rohit Sharma have returned the compliment after the Vizag Test. He still had a tendency to go on the defensive easily, but where it mattered he attacked in the finest Bazball manner. Youngsters Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubhman Gill stroked freely and often, and whenever India needed a wicket, the great Jasprit Bumrah obliged.
