England thrash India at The Oval to secure 3-1 victory in Test series
On a late summer Kennington afternoon, India suffered their final humiliation of a month that had already seen indignity heaped on indignity. Faced with the task of making 338 in their second innings even for England to bat again, they had capitulated with almost relentless predictability by 4.20pm, dismissed for 94, leaving England winners by an innings and 244 runs. Only at Lord’s, in 1974, when the margin was an innings and 285, have England delivered a bigger beating to India, for whom this represents their third heaviest innings defeat.
Thus, England, seemingly on the ropes and in crisis only a few weeks ago, after they themselves had been dismissed ignominiously at Lord’s, finish the summer having won the last three matches by 266 runs at Ageas Bowl; an innings and 54 at Old Trafford; and now this. It also means that England retain the Pataudi Trophy that they won under Andrew Strauss and retained under Alastair Cook in India.
The England seam bowlers were irresistible, aided by the substantial movement, both in the air and from the pitch of a kind that has made batting a trial throughout this match, and indeed the last four matches, and by the technical and mental inadequacies of the Indian batting. The chief beneficiary was Chris Jordan, who polished things off with clinical precision, taking 4 for 18, with Jimmy Anderson taking 2 for 16, and Stuart Broad and Chris Woakes taking a wicket apiece for 22 and 24 runs respectively. There were two run outs.
Anderson stands only four wickets short of overtaking Ian Botham’s England record of 383 wickets, but must wait at least until Antigua in April for the opportunity to do so in what would be his 100th Test match. In taking 25 wickets at 20.6 runs apiece, Anderson was the obvious choice for Duncan Fletcher, the India coach, to nominate as England’s man of the series.
The man of the match award went to Joe Root, whose unbeaten 149 in batting conditions that became ever more demanding as the pitch gained pace over three days, helped propel England to a formidable 486 that left India with no chance, beyond the weather, of saving the game. There was, indeed, some rain, but it arrived shortly before lunch and delayed play by only 20 minutes after the interval while the covers were mopped up.
Since their first innings at Lord’s, India’s scores have been progressively lower: 347; then 330 and 178 at Ageas Bowl; 152 and 161 at Old Trafford; and now 148 and 94. In their last five innings, then, they have lost 50 wickets for 733 runs in 247 overs, which means one wicket every five overs. This is not just poor batting, it is calamitous.
Now, for India, comes the soul searching, a challenge to see quite how much this defeat, in this form of cricket, affects the perception of the team in India. As with England it is a young side, largely anyway, who came up against a similarly developing team but, crucially, in familiar conditions. They were just not up to the job.
Now, though, the teams will soon exchange their Test match whites for their limited-overs colours, and here India might find England in the process of significant redevelopment, as close as they are to February’s World Cup. Would this Test match humiliation be offset, airbrushed away even as almost an irrelevance, by a win in a one-day series as a precursor to their own defence of the World Cup? And how will this affect the position of Fletcher, whose Test match record away from India is abysmal. Can his limited overs record, which includes the Champions Trophy in this country a year ago, sustain him (always assuming he wants it, of course)?
England had begun the final day already in a commanding position, with Root approaching his fifth Test match hundred, and with time enough to extend that to one of total dominance. So hard did Root and, after the loss of Jordan, Broad go that 101 runs were scored in the 11 overs and three balls it took India to finish off the innings. Whereupon, the bowlers, backed by high-quality catching and ground fielding, began the process of working their way through the order.
Anderson, inevitably, made the first incision, a brilliant outer-outer-inner three-card trick to have Murali Vijay lbw, and Woakes the second incision, running out the hapless Gautam Gambhir just as the rain began to fall. After the restart, it was relentless pressure, with five and sometimes six men close catching on the offside. Anderson found another special delivery for Cheteshwar Pujara, and Gary Ballance made an outstanding left-handed diving catch at third slip to pluck an edge from Ajinkya Rahane that would not have carried to second slip.
The main stumbling blocks that remained now were Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni. But Woakes found a little extra bounce to have the India captain caught at short leg from inside edge and thigh pad, and Jordan, brought into the attack to replace Broad, immediately had Kohli, aiming to clip the ball through midwicket, well caught by Cook at first slip.
It was processional thereafter as Ravichandran Ashwin and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, the latter India’s man of the series, were caught by Ian Bell at second slip, Ashwin after Ballance had parried into the air a sharp head-high chance. When Varun Aaron was run out, with brilliant work from Jos Buttler in gathering Moeen Ali’s throw, it left Ishant Sharma as the last bastion. Jordan’s bouncer, fended into the air and caught by Moeen running in from short extra cover, made short work of it.
