Rajkot pitch has not offered enough — second Test in Visakhapatnam should be a different story

In this week's Eye on India column, Dileep Premachandran looks at the ongoing Test series between India and England.

By the end of the Day 4, Ravichandran Ashwin’s match figures in Rajkot were two for 199. Indranil Mukherjee / AFP

There were just a few minutes left for stumps on Day 4 in Rajkot on Saturday of the first Test when it happened.

Virat Kohli had brought Ravichandran Ashwin on for a second spell, as India sought a breakthrough in England’s second innings.

Ashwin got one to grip and turn sharply, and Haseeb Hameed — the 19-year-old batsman making his debut in the city where his father was born — opted not to play a shot, instead turning his back on the delivery.

It struck him on the thigh pad and Ashwin went up in appeal. Kohli was uncertain whether to go for the review, and there was no great encouragement from Wriddhiman Saha behind the stumps either.

But with Ashwin, the No 1-ranked bowler in the world, so confident, Kohli asked for it anyway. Ball tracking showed the ball missing the off stump by a couple of inches.

By the end of the penultimate day, Ashwin’s match figures were two for 199. England have piled up 651 runs in the game, and are 163 in front with all 10 second-innings wickets in hand.

More India v England:

• Day 4: Haseeb Hameed hits debut half-century as first Test ambles towards draw

• Day 3: Pujara and Vijay centuries aid India's response to England's 537 on Day 3 in Rajkot

• Day 2: Ben Stokes and Moeen Ali guide England to huge total on Day 2 as India begin response

• Day 1: Centurion Joe Root hails 'fantastic' England display on Day 1 of first Test against India

• Osman Samiuddin: No matter how you spin it, Alastair Cook and England face a daunting task in India

Unless they collapse in the fashion that Australia did in Hobart earlier on Saturday when they were bowled out for 85 by South Africa, a draw is the best that India can hope for.

The only team with a real chance of winning, albeit on a pitch with few gremlins, is England.

It has been quite a turnaround for a side that were embarrassed in Bangladesh only two weeks ago, with Mehedi Hasan, a young off-spinner making his debut, taking 19 wickets in two Tests.

But on a Rajkot surface nothing like as spin-friendly as those they played on in Bangladesh — whatever turn there has been has generally been slow, allowing batsmen time to adjust — England are the team that will take away plenty of positives.

The way they recovered on the opening day would have been especially pleasing. At 102 for three, with Ashwin having winkled out Hameed and Ben Duckett in the opening session, things could have got grim for England.

India had dropped catches in the opening hour, but were still very much in the ascendancy at lunch.

From there, Joe Root and Moeen Ali both made classy hundreds, while Ben Stokes reasserted his box-office qualities with a punishing 128 that wrested any semblance of control away from India.

Ashwin dismissed Duckett with the third ball of his 12th over. Since then, he has sent down a further 267 deliveries without reward.

It is only the first Test of the series, and that too on an utterly placid pitch, but for some Indian supporters, there are already uncomfortable echoes of 2012 when England were expected to struggle but instead won the series 2-1.

What will encourage India is how well they batted under scoreboard pressure. Murali Vijay finally got the century that his solidity deserved and there was a fine hundred from Cheteshwar Pujara, the hometown lad who has transformed his fortunes since being dropped in the Caribbean earlier this year.

It was the first time his father Arvind, a former first-class player who remains his coach, had watched him bat live in a Test, and the son made it worth his while, adding 209 with Vijay to put India in a strong position.

That they did not take a lead was down to some outstanding leg-spin bowling from Adil Rashid.

Alastair Cook, the England captain, did not seem to trust him enough on Day 3, but with India resuming at 318 for four on Saturday, it was Rashid that took the vital wicket of Kohli.

India’s captain had not looked unduly troubled on his way to 40, but as he went back in the crease to work away a delivery from Rashid, his foot dislodged one of the bails.

Throughout his spells, the googly bounced disconcertingly, and while there were still a few hit-me balls, this performance was certainly one that Rashid can build on.

The same could be said of Cook’s team as a whole, though a sterner challenge undoubtedly awaits in Visakhapatnam, the scene of the second Test which begins on Thursday.

India’s women’s side face fight to reach World Cup

About 400 kilometres separate the ground in Visakhapatnam, where India and England will play the second Test next week, from the ACA Cricket Ground in Mulapadu where India’s women’s side are hosting the West Indies in a three-match one-day international (ODI) series that has big implications for World Cup qualification.

In terms of media attention, however, the two are worlds apart.

Two of the India squad, Harmanpreet Kaur (Sydney Thunder) and Smriti Mandhana (Brisbane Heat), have been signed up by Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL) franchises for the tournament which begins its second staging next month, but at home they labour away in relative anonymity.

A crowd of around 600, and two journalists, watched them beat the West Indies in the first game.

Rajeshwari Gayakwad and Ekta Bisht spun a strong West Indies line-up out for just 131, and after India had slipped to 36 for 4, Mithali Raj (46 not out) and Veda Krishnamurthy (52 not out) saw India home.

Mithali, the captain, made her debut in June 1999 and was playing her 165th ODI. Jhulan Goswami, who still takes the new ball, made her debut in January 2002, and the next match will be her 150th.

Between the two, they have carried Indian women’s cricket for over a decade. Had they been younger, the WBBL teams would have been beating down a path to their doors.

Instead, India now face a tricky qualifying tournament in Colombo next February to make it through to the World Cup in England next June-July.

For now, it looks like the automatic qualifiers will be Australia, England, West Indies and New Zealand.

India, in sixth place in the eight-team table, will have to compete against South Africa and three of the other south Asian nations — Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh — to make it through.

Frosty diplomatic relations meant that India and Pakistan did not play each other — mind you, diplomacy only seems to apply to cricket, with the hockey teams playing each other at the Asian Champions Trophy earlier in the month — and both teams missed out on six possible points.

India, who have won seven and lost eight of their 16 games, just have not been consistent enough, and the new generation will really have to step up if the next World Cup is not to be as disappointing as the one on home soil in 2013, when they did not even make it out of the group stage.

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