IND vs ENG: Why young India failed at the Leeds despite five centuries?

It’s a pity that knives will be out for Shubman Gill, the new Indian Test captain, and his new look team after England pulled off a heist in style at The Leeds on Tuesday. Five centuries from the top order, a five-wicket haul by the peerless Jasprit Bumrah saw them dominating for long stretches of the game but the Bazballers brought out their A game on final day – against which the Indian bowlers had no answer.

There is, of course, plenty to ponder upon for Gautam Gambhir & Co over the next week before the second Test begins at Birmingham on 2 July. The biggest regret will be that after the top order weathered the new ball successfully in both innings, there were three sore points which undid them – a weak kneed lower order, lack of bite in pace bowling apart from Bumrah and of course an unusually sloppy catching performance throughout.

Add to this, there will be endless post mortem of Gill’s captaincy whether he ought to have given his lower batters a mandate to be more aggressive in their second innings – but then even an additional 35-40 runs would not have been enough for this England under Ben Stokes. They have now done it twice against India recently, first by chasing down 378 at Birmingham during the 2021-22 series and now 371, the highest ever on this ground.

‘’We were looking to set them a target in the region of 430 but it didn’t quite happen. Our  last six wickets added 25-odd runs, that’s not done,’’ a somewhat defensive Gill said – and one had to feel for him. Just ponder this – they collapsed from 430/3 to 471 all out in the first innings while it was 364 all out after being 287/3 at one stage in second. Add the fielding lapses to it as there was a telling piece of statistics – Yashasvi Jaiswal turned out to be a serial offender as he dropped six matches which cost the team a whopping 202 runs.

Going forward, what could be the remedial measures on part of India, who have never won a Test in a head-to-head record of in eight matches at Birmingham? This bowling line-up is hopelessly reliant on Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja to some extent and does not have the wherewithal to take 20 wickets in a Test match, even with the benefit of English conditions from time to time. The absence of veteran Mohammed Shami is clearly hurting the team but under the circumstances not in your control, the think tank has to make better utilisation of the resources at their disposal.

The bitter truth is that even after nearly five years of international cricket behind him now, Mohammed Siraj has not been able to inspire that confidence of being able to lead the attack in the absence of Bumrah. He continues to blow hot and cold while Krishna, despite striking with two quick wickets on the final day, failed to hit the right areas to be able to ask questions of the batters. Shardul Thakur, the senior allrounder who was preferred in the playing XI in place of Nitish Reddy, chipped in with valuable wickets of Ben Duckett and Harry Brook but England were simply undaunted.

This is where one needs to question Gambhir’s ability to think outside the box. It’s the sameness of the Indian pace attack which had, in recent years, been their Achilles heel abroad and it was surprising to see him not opting for an in-form Arshdeep Singh despite having a left-arm seamer in the red ball unit after a long gap. The natural angle that he can create for the right handers, along with his ability to move the ball in the air, makes him a candidate to play as the third seamer in England.

There is also a conundrum about the number of spinners in the XI – with India beginning the series with one spinning allrounder in Jadeja as the obvious choice. It’s certainly worth going in with Kuldeep Yadav at some point as the England batters are not comfortable with wrist spin but given the doubt in the abilities of the lower order, even Washington Sundar can come handy in place of the seaming allrounder. There are a number of left handers in the England squad and for all you know, his off spin can provide some variety.

In the batting department, there could be a few calls to replace debutant Sai Sudarshan or even Karun Nair, but then it will be a thoroughly knee jerk action. They were the only two batters in the top order who failed to fire in either innings – but they certainly deserve a longer run!