It was difficult for England to get the pink ball going to light last season (Pic credit – BCCI)
England will have been watching this night’s Test match for a while.
He had nothing to do with the brand, passing a new 110,000-seat stadium or even the park they were expected to play in Ahmedabad; it was about getting that pink ball in the hands of their sailors under lights.
To be fair to them, they were able to do so on the first day of the third Test. Unfortunately, that was because they were folded out for just 112 after winning the toss and selected to bat.
Before we go any further, it is important to note that this is the most important problem for England. You’re not going to win a lot of test matches in the subcontinent, or anywhere else for that matter, if you find out within two sessions of the first day and hardly make it to three figures.
What makes matters worse though, is that it looks more likely that the tourists have made up their XI quite wrong and it depends on one thing: the pink ball that under light.
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Since the first nightly Test between Australia and New Zealand, in Adelaide in late 2015, it has become a reality within cricket – with good reason – when the floods come on, the pink ball going.
Having been outsourced by Indian spinners over the years, it may be easy to understand that England chose to focus their attention on this truism of test cricket.
While a park that turns early and often favors India, as the second Test in Chennai stressed is almost certain, there is a game in which the sailors maintain high standards on the game range.
Add to that the fact that India themselves now boast a good range of fast bowlers and it was not unbelievable that they could take out a pitch even if they offered him something the spinners, they would bring Jasprit Bumrah, Ishant Sharma and co into the equation as well.
England then reached Ahmedabad on the back of a terrible loss in which Ravichandran Ashwin and Axar Patel ran amok, caught the pink balls in the nets and rose quickly.
“Stuart Broad, Jimmy Anderson and Jofra Archer have been fattening their lips, I can tell you,” said Ben Stokes talkSPORT in construction. “It’s a completely different game.
Ben Stokes was encouraged by the number of English distance bowlers getting the pink ball moving in nets (Credit: BCCI)
“It was funny training yesterday, when the lights came on, the nets were really dangerous.”
Anderson himself had warned that it would be a mistake to assume that the pink ball would do as much in the middle as it did in the nets but with Stokes’ account of the session barely that, it was no big surprise when the three of Broad, Anderson and Archer were named in the XI with Jack Leach the only major front spinner.
Perhaps the warning bells should have started ringing when Virat Kohli announced that India had once again selected three spinners and just two sailors.
Quickly talking about one of the sides made a big mistake with their team selection but equally, before a ball was launched, it could be just as easy to argue that both side chosen to play to their strengths: India support the spinners to do the damage again no matter what color the ball was and England put the belief in their sailors to immediately damage it with a ball they intended to whistle around under the lights.
India’s plan certainly worked when England fell from 74-2 to 112 all out, nine wickets falling to spin – there was a sharp turn but for the most part it was the slipping deliveries caused the most problems.
Spinner Axar Patel tore through England with six wikis (Pic credit – BCCI)
England then scored five goals with the new ball before dinner time and although they did not take a wicket – a quick decision from the third umpire came to turn the soft ‘out’ signal when Shubman saw Gill Broad to Stokes at the second slip to that – there was more than enough lateral movement, especially for Anderson, suggesting that the visitors ’hunt had been right as well.
When the players returned from the break 40 minutes later, it was a different story. Dew appeared on the outdoor field as the temperature dropped and all but the small swing suggestion seemed to have disappeared.
Archer came forward and made progress but it was a short ball rather than a late late move that took Gill away and it was Leach’s left arm twist that got rid of Cheteshwar Pujara.
Anderson came back for a second spell and Kohli’s Ollie Pope should drop a control chance at a gul, but again, the opportunity didn’t come as a result of a big swing or seam move, but it was a suggestion of an extra kick. that surprised the captain of India.
Jack Leach removed both Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli (Pic credit – BCCI)
The hardness of the ball, thanks to the lacquer as well as the pink ball, seems to have added to that but it is the spinners who have benefited the most with these deliveries who have just jumped forward. with the arm.
Shortly before the end of the game, CricViz found that 21 per cent of spinners found false shots, compared to the 13 per cent controlled by the sailors on both sides and that was before Kohli slipped on the stocks from Leach.
Knowing their sailors that the pink ball would work for them, England may have been guilty of looking up at the lights and being lured by the treasures that could come together.
But with the dry, dusty surface underneath, it looks more likely that these treasures were little more than a mirage.
Follow a text report from day two of the third test during the day between India and England in Ahmedabad on skysports.com and the Sky Sports app from 8.30am on Thursday.