The change needs to come from the top. I have never been more let down by MS Dhoni’s captaincy than I was during the second innings at Southampton. As many of you probably know, I am a huge Dhoni fan, and I was truly disappointed at the way he persisted with three slips, even as England were snatching runs from all corners of the ground. It was as though he had just given up and wanted to go home.
At the other end of the spectrum, his opposite number, Alastair Cook, was regaining confidence both as batsman and as leader with every ball, every minute. I doubt whether Ravindra Jadeja will ever live down the dropped catch off Cook when the
Speaking of Jadeja, no matter what anyone says, he is not a wicket-taking bowler, but a defensive one. He may have landed a few victims in the IPL, but that’s more because batsmen got themselves out trying to slog him out of the park. That’s a different story from Test cricket, where his limitations are many, and severe.
Thankfully, though, the mysterious affair of the omission of Ravichandran Ashwin is about to be addressed. Why an off-break bowler has sat out three games against a team that has not one, not two, but five left-handed batsmen, I will never know. Get him out on the pitch and let him bowl into the bowlers’ footholds!
So assuming Ashwin comes in, who does he replace? India certainly need a fifth bowler, particularly now that Ishant Sharma is out of the picture, because they seem to have mistakenly supposed that the four-bowler strategy that worked on the Lord’s green top will work everywhere else. Therefore, a regular batsman needs to go, and there are at least four options. The prime candidate for me would be Shikhar Dhawan, who has shown himself to be sadly lacking in both footwork and technique.
The other letdowns, of course, are Rohit Sharma, Cheteswar Pujara, and Virat Kohli. Sharma in particular was a waste of time at Southampton, getting out to an ugly shot against the spinner, trying to hit over the top. We know how good India’s young batsmen can be, but, as has happened many times in the past, their fame seems to exceed their performance.
One more area of concern for India is the entire Anderson affair. So intent were the Indians on stopping James Anderson from playing that their focus seems to have shifted from beating England, and all that they succeeded in doing was to prove how desperately they wanted him out of the way. Now that he has got away scot free, they need to contend with him all over again at Old Trafford. My advice to them would be to avoid trying to score against him, and simply see him off.
England are unlikely to tamper with a winning team, unless Steven Finn comes in, and he’s a fine young bowler. They got lucky with quite a few umpiring decisions at Southampton, but a win is a win, and like it or not, as I said, England have turned a corner and look a different team now.