The world has gone mad. England are in meltdown. They have not won for 10 Tests, a horror run to match the dark days of the 1980s and 1990s. Their captain is on the verge of being pushed. Another senior player is gone. India have just won their first Test at Lord's since 1986. It is their first win away from home since June 2011, a run in which they had lost 10 of 15 Tests.
Here are five observations from the second Test at Lord’s:
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Where is Virat Kohli?
India’s next great batting champion sits at the very bottom of India’s batting averages after Lord’s. Even Ishant Sharma has a better average.
So far, his 34 runs in two Tests, for an average of 8.5, have crept under the scanner as others around him have flourished. So rich has been his form in recent years that he has plenty of credit left before this becomes a genuine crisis.
But there has been something in the manner of his dismissals. Apart from the first innings at Lord’s, he has been bowled offering no shot, caught in the slips poking outside off and leg-before playing across the line. These are distracted, careless dismissals, surprising for a player as focused as Kohli. If India are to maintain their lead he will need to come good at some stage.
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Has Ishant Sharma finally arrived?
We have been here before. Each time Ishant has won a match for India this question has been asked, and each time the response has been performances that render the query redundant.
So we ask again. Has he finally arrived? His second-innings seven-74 were the best figures by an Indian bowler in England.
More significantly, that made it 25 wickets in his past four Tests, during which he has taken three five-wicket hauls.
Fifty-three Tests before this run had brought him three five-wicket hauls in total.
We all know how good he can and should be. With that height, attitude and occasional pace, he should be established by now. There are reasons to believe this could be a pivotal moment, however. For one, Zaheer Khan is gone and Ishant, indisputably, is an attack leader.
Two, he bounced England out. He did not want to, but he did. Maybe this will convince him to bare his teeth more in the future.
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England were out-bowled by India. Really.
On a green pitch in England, pace bowlers James Anderson and Stuart Broad, with over 600 wickets and 167 Tests combined, were out-bowled by three pace bowlers with a total of 225 wickets and 73 Tests between them.
Anderson and Broad did not have horrendous games, but bafflingly, they bowled the wrong lengths.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ishant and Mohammad Shami used the conditions far better and that makes Anderson and Broad look considerably worse than they were.
Above all the English duo looked spent.
They have served England brilliantly, but they have been flogged into the ground. The burden they have had to bear over the past three years, and especially since last summer, is coming back to bite them. It gets worse, because the next Test begins Sunday at the Rose Bowl.
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New England: If it is broke, fix it.
Peter Moores and Alastair Cook were supposed to resurrect an England battered in Australia. Kevin Pietersen was dumped, Graeme Swann retired and Jonathan Trott exited, leaving England with a true chance to start afresh.
They have, in a sense, by bringing in Gary Ballance, Sam Robson, Moeen Ali and further developing Joe Root. All of them have done their bit this summer
But maybe there was not enough of a culling at the time. Matt Prior, arguably, should not have been in the set-up this summer. Ian Bell has played more than 100 Tests yet still feels as fragile as someone playing his 10th.
Above all is Cook. He has had batting slumps before but now, as captain, it is doubly burdensome.
He looks out of ideas, weighed down and a man at the very tether of his equanimity.
And Moores? He has endured a flat start to his second tenure that mirrors the end of his last. At some point the penny may drop that he is not cut out for this level.
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India’s next all-rounder? Gulp.
After two Tests, Bhuvneshwar is second in the batting averages (three fifties) and tops the bowling averages (two five-wicket hauls). He has been clutch at crucial moments with bat and ball – a true all-rounder. Now if only India remember to let him be a swing bowler first and not try to push him up the batting order. The last time India thought they had a fast-bowling all-rounder they ended up confusing Irfan Pathan so badly, nobody is quite sure what he does anymore.
osamiuddin@thenational.ae
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