Boom Boom Bumrah! India in complete control after day 2 in Visakhapatnam
India v England, 3rd February 2024.
India 396 all out and 28–0 (leading by 171 runs)
England 253 all out
Oh the joys and delights, the vagaries and quintessential beauty that is the grandest of all games, Test Match cricket!
341 total runs scored in the day.
An astonishing 14 wickets tumbling.
India in the ascendancy yet falling way short of a mammoth score.
England blazing a trail until blown away as the game turns once more.
India have an almost unbeatable lead.
England are snookered behind the 8 ball needing another miracle.
Boy do I love this game!
Act One: England win the session as Anderson rolls back the years
Commencing the day on 336–6, India would surely have been targeting at least an extra 120 runs whilst the visiting England team desperate for the early fall of wickets and the end of their hosts 1st innings and whilst the opening 30 minutes of play was rather a stalemate, eventually England “won” the session, conceding just 60 further runs as they wrapped up the Indian innings for an all out total of 396.
Taking the new ball at the start of play as “Jerusalem” by England’s visiting “Barmy Army” battled to be heard above the din of the air horns that would continue throughout the day, James Anderson belied his 41 years once more in an extraordinary spell of tight swing bowling that eventually snagged the outside edge of Ravi Ashwin’s bat and into the gleeful gloved hands of wicket-keeper Ben Foakes. A thoroughly deserved wicket it was too, Anderson’s 692nd in a record breaking Test Match cricket career and soon after, and after almost taking his wicket when on 183, Anderson would also secure the wicket of yesterday’s centurion, and today’s double centurion, Yashasvi Jaiswal. 19 years his junior, Jaiswal would eventually become Anderson’s 693rd all-time wicket when chasing for quick runs at the end of the India innings and after the 22 year old had notched his “double ton”, falling for a remarkable 209 from 290 balls received.
India would add just a further 13 runs for their remaining 2 wickets as Jasprit Bumrah “a wicket waiting to happen” according to the sarcasm dripping through my match notes and Mukesh Kumar fell to Rehan Ahmed and Shoaib Bashir respectfully, ensuring these 2 spin bowlers and James Anderson each bagged 3 wickets each and, more importantly, the hosts had arguably fallen at least 50 runs short of a targeted all out score this morning.
Batting for that cliche laden, and always ever so pleasing for an old school cricket fan such as myself, “tricky 20 minutes” before the end of a session, England openers Zak Crawley (15 not out) and Ben Duckett (17 not out) coasted through this shortened period to rest at the Lunch Break with their team 32–0.
It was a quite perfect morning for England in every respect: Anderson was impeccable and is now just 7 wickets away from 700 Test Match scalps. Rehan Ahmed and Shoaib Bashir (19 and 20 years of age respectfully) each grabbed 3 wickets and the team as a whole had restricted their Indian hosts to below 400 on 1st innings.
The perfect morning became a sublime afternoon.
Then Jasprit Bumrah decided he wanted to come out and play!
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Act Two: Boom Boom Bumrah!
From 32–0 at the Lunch Break, Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett added yet another 50 run opening partnership to their joint cricketing CV’s and were calmness personified until the demise of Duckett for 21 to a beautifully spinning delivery from Kuldeep Yadav. Ollie Pope soon joined a dominant Crawley who after receiving a “life” when on 18 and dropped by a flying Shubman Gill at a close-in “Mid-Wicket” position, then rattled up a run-a-ball half century and with Pope now settling in after an unsteady start to his innings, England galloped along to 114–1 before, well, your favourite cricket correspondent fell asleep! Oh come on! It was “silly o’clock” in the morning, dawn was beginning to break with a spectacular red and purple background to the early morning clouds and Zak Crawley was looking imperious. What could possibly go wrong?
I awoke half an hour or so later with disbelieving eyes to a picture of utter cricketing mayhem and the roars once more of Indian fast bowler, Jasprit Bumrah. In my absence, not only had the 30 year old from Ahmedabad grabbed the vital wicket of an angry and disconsolate Joe Root for a lowly 5 runs, he’d now, spectacularly, “castled” Ollie Pope for 23 and in the process, smashed his middle and leg stumps clean out of the ground. This was the image I awoke to from my brief slumber, 2 of Pope’s 3 stumps ripped from the ground and the constant replaying of Bumrah’s incredible delivery, a fast in-swinging “yorker” that started way outside of Pope’s off stump before spearing in like a guided missile into his middle and leg stumps. Sheer perfection. Unplayable. A “Jaffa” in the dictionary of this great game and what’s more, no batsman in the world could have defended it. Quite beautiful. Bumrah, so ordinary this morning that Zak Crawley had pummelled him for 4 boundary 4’s in just 1 over, had returned with a vengeance with the ridiculous figures of 4 overs 2 wickets for just 3 runs and if this wasn’t enough, he’d improve on this further still later in the day.
Sadly for England this wasn’t all. Zak Crawley, a batsman I have long championed and adore watching bat, perished for a run-a-ball 76 to the bowling of Axar Patel and being hyper critical, it was a reckless and unnecessary shot and rather than the BIG century and anchor to the innings England needed, they folded from 114–1 to 155–4 in an hour’s play leading to the Tea Break and soon after, Bumrah would be back for more!
Act Three: Boom Boom Bumrah (Part Two)
All hopes now rested on Jonny Bairstow (24 not out) and captain Ben Stokes (5 not out) as England resumed after the Tea Break still a distant 241 runs adrift on 1st innings. My hopes of a huge Bairstow century disappeared immediately after the break as Bumrah claimed his third wicket of the innings and following minimal resistance from Rehan Ahmed and Ben Foakes who both fell to Kuldeep Yadav, the fast bowler then cleaned up the remainder of the England innings in yet another incredible spell of bowling that yielded figures of 6 overs 4 wickets for 14 runs and an overall innings total of 6 wickets at the cost of just 45 runs. Tom Hartley bashed a spirited 21 runs, James Anderson 6, but an image to rank with that of Ollie Pope and his shattered “castle” is reserved for England skipper Ben Stokes who, after bludgeoning a quick fire 47 runs from 54 balls received lost his particular castle to a delivery from Bumrah that didn’t bounce and, to his utter astonishment, dribbled under his bat and into his off stump. Stokes dropped his bat on the wicket in despair and shook his head repeatedly as he trudged back to the Pavilion. Bumrah meanwhile roared in celebration at yet another wicket, and England were crawling to an all out total of just 253 to trail by a whopping 143 runs on 1st innings.
The cricket fan in me had yet another of those oh so pleasing “tricky” 20 minutes of no win/no lose cricket at the end of the day, but with England desperate for wickets and India keen on keeping all 10 within the Pavilion, the hosts prevailed, ending the day 28–0 and with an almost unbeatable lead after day 2 of 171 runs.
It was India’s day. They’ve arguably “won” 5 of the 6 sessions hence far and commence tomorrow morning with an imposing lead, their captain Rohit Sharma 13 not out and double centurion from the 1st innings Yashasvi Jaiswal 15 not out. Tomorrow will also arguably be the best day for batting on a wicket that shows the variable bounce that accounted for Stokes and will only get lower and slower the longer the Test Match runs.
England meanwhile are in deep, deep trouble. 171 runs behind and all 10 Indian wickets still standing, they need a Herculean bowling performance from someone tomorrow to aid James Anderson in dismissing the entire India team before the lead stretches beyond 300 as it will be curtains if the lead passes 350 and next to zero fabric left if they’re chasing 400+. The history of this great game dictates this so.
They were in a huge hole after day 2 in Hyderabad but this is different. I wrote them off pre-tour and after a poor beginning in the first Test Match so I’d warmly welcome being proved wrong yet again. I foresee India piling on the the misery tomorrow and the series square at 1–1 by the middle of day 4.
Hope springs eternal.
Or has it sprung a leak into the Bay of Bengal?
See you in the morning.
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