Mental disintegration was the phrase coined by Steve Waugh re: getting into the batsman’s mind via sledging. But, as new writer Ned Vessey, explores, nothing can utterly confound batsmen like the spinning ball on a minefield …
Test cricket is a cruel beast. It can leave the players bruised and battered, broken-boned. It drains, and leaves the body dehydrated. It makes muscles sore and strained. It is relentless and punishing on those who take part.
Its greatest cruelty, however, is what it does to the mind.
The frankly bizarre third Test has demonstrated that. A combination of high-class spin bowling, a questionable pitch and a lacquered pink ball saw a succession of batsman put through the mental wringer in just under two days play.
This kind of mental bamboozlement is unique to spin bowling. Unlike facing pace, which largely leaves responses down to infinitesimally slim reactions, facing spin bowling offers an extra fraction of time to respond.
In this extra space, and when confronted with bowlers in the calibre of Ravi Ashwin and Axar Patel, batsmen are able to get themselves in a terrible tangle. Should they go forwards or back? Should they play for spin? Should they get their front pad out of line with the stumps? Should they use their feet? Should they sweep? Should they leave it?
All these decisions have to be made very briefly. They not only demonstrate just how tough Test cricket can be, but they also offer a clue as to why so many batsmen struggled in this Test.
As a succession of batsmen began to struggle on a pitch that turned early, yet still saw plenty of deliveries go straight on, those questions became more and more jumbled in their minds. Suddenly, the pitch was even tougher than it was in reality, Ashwin and Axar even more threatening than they actually were.
Rather than just taking each ball as it came, England’s batsmen began to envision what ball they were going to get before it was delivered. Cue Jonny Bairstow playing for turn that didn’t come, leaving a large gap between bat and pad. Cue Dom Sibley playing an ugly and uncharacteristic hack that resulted in a feathery edge.
That 21 out of the 30 batsmen to fall in the match were out playing for spin that never came demonstrates just how much the pitch and the game got into the heads of the batsmen’s heads. That Joe Root took 5-8 is telling. The England skipper bowled extremely well, but he was also aided by the mental tangle of the Indian batsmen.
Only in the fourth innings, when England’s heads were down and the pressure was off India, did the batsmen look comfortable. It shows just how much the developing game situation affected the minds of the batsmen, and how the danger of the pitch and the ball became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I am not denying that the pitch was tough, nor that all the spinners in the game bowled extremely well. However, with every ball that skidded on, and every one that turned, the batsmen became increasingly unsure what to play for, and ended up playing for neither. The atmosphere became ever more frantic and manic, fed by the panic and confusion of the players.
India may have emerged the ultimate victors, but the cruelty of Test cricket on the mind, and the way in which the mental state of the players can affect the outcome of a match is perhaps the most significant point that we can take away from one of the strangest Tests in some time.
Ned Vessey
Maybe now there’ll be more appreciation of how great Tony Greig’s 103 in 1976/77 must have been where the only thing that raged more than the bunsen of a pitch was Greig’s fever from a dose of ‘Delhi belly’. The usually aggressive Greig took 347 deliveries batting against Bedi, Chandrasekhar and Prasanna (the least remembered of the three but who Ian Chappell rated the best off-spinner he played against). Only three other batsmen in the match made 50s and nobody topped 70.
The key differences seem to be that Greig’s experince in spinning conditions enabled him to form a successful strategy and he was willing to bat time. Not bad for a cricketer who wasn’t worth his place according to the wisdom of some….
As for this England bunch, what consequences will they face? The next match rolls around soon and they’ll probably drop some bowlers. I suppose they might drop Pope but that’ll have more to do with protecting an asset than anything else and he’ll be back in when the going gets easier.
Steve Waugh had an extremely tough baptism to Test cricket which has part of what made him such a hard bastard later on.
Re both Greig and Pope: that’s actually exactly why I wouldn’t change the batting for the next test. There’s no-one obviously better to replace them, either in the tour party or in county cricket, so it would be better to give some of the newer players some more experience of this type of pitch and bowlers.
Dennis Amiss was saying this week that the 1973 tour had stood England in very good stead for the 1976 series–of which Greig (and Amiss himself) are probably the most obvious examples.
And, as has been said so many times, the ECB could also help themselves by not punishing Somerset every time they produce a pitch which turns more than two inches!
If I were Root I would be putting this game to bed as largely irrelevant. There’s no point dwelling on failure, when the biggest failure was the groundsmen’s. Once the ball starts to misbehave early on the batsmen’s are all looking for it, so what happened should come as no surprise. You must remember the Indians succumbed in similar vein for the most part.
Agree there’s no one obviously better to come in, but I do feel Ashwin’s got the eye over Pope. I would bring the more technical Lawrence back for him. Bairstow played the spin well in Galle so I would keep him to add a bit of experience to an otherwise very inexperienced line up.
We certainly need a shorter tail too. Until Archer can show he can up his game consistently I would bring in Woakes to shore up the lower order. At least he doesn’t come with the recent baggage. He’s a intelligent bowler and is capable of getting the Rohits and Kholi’s of this world.
With Stokes clearly unfit to bowl long spells he could at least fill a containing role.
Whatever the state of the pitch it will still be a major achievement to topple India again and will certainly require more p,Ayer she to come to the party.
This is spicy stuff Ned, very interesting
Well yes Woakes should play, but “rotation” has demanded he goes home having not played in one test. In fact I think he’s gone. I wouldn’t play Archer or Broad, Archer offers nothing unless he bowls flat out, which he obviously can’t do (anymore?) I expect him to be white ball only by his own choice way before the Ashes. Root basically stuffed him up by using him as a stock bowler so many times.
My attack therefore would be: Anderson, Stone, Leach, Bess + Stokes, but can he bowl more than two overs? In fact if the pitch looks like this one again maybe a 3rd front line spinner rather than Stone. Is Crane or Virdi still in the party? I can’t imagine Root will get another 5-for. Good article by the way.
Well beaten, lacking basic game skills, mentally flabby, captain bogged down rowing with the officials rather than showing any leadership.
But enough about the rugby team….
Popes a good player
Yes but Ashwin’s got the eye over him and he’s a better bowler than Pope is a batsman. Pope has yet to show on bowlers wickets. There’ll be no flat tacks on this tour.
Sadly, Marc, Woakes has gone home having played no part in the Test series.
Very interesting article Ned. I do think a major contributing factor was the lacquer on the pink ball which caused the ball to increase pace after bouncing thus catching out a lot of the batsmen on both sides. It was astonishing how batters played down the wrong line or were late. I would drop Bairstow who shouldn’t be anywhere near the Test team and bring back Bess for Archer/Broad
Re Bairstow–I can’t see how being bowled between bat and pad can be a result of playing for turn that doesn’t come. That’s a technical fault–and it’s the one which he was in part dropped for eighteen months ago (he’s only played two non-test f-c games since, in which he was solid but not spectacular, yet he’s been recalled twice).
He played well in Galle just a few weeks ago in similar conditions. Who else played as well?