As early as the 10th over of the Indian innings, there were visible footmarks created by the follow-through of David Willey and Chris Woakes. Under the unforgiving sun, the 22 yards gave first account of its tricky colours and maintained the hue throughout the Indian innings. The brownish surface with a tinge of green looked sluggish from some distance and behaved exactly like that.
For five games, Indian bowlers had bottled oppositions, kept chipping away with wickets at regular intervals, didn’t allow any momentum and today it was the batters who received a similar dose by England bowlers in Lucknow. After put into bat, the Men in Blue finally got an opportunity to do something different in the tournament but the batters, except Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul and Suryakumar Yadav, failed to apply themselves.
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The pitch had enough for the bowlers – both quicks and spinners – but it was the clear lack of application and repeated attempts to get ahead of the game which never allowed the innings to get going. Rohit, who shifted gears with precision and knew when to switch the regressive mode on, didn’t get the required support from the other for long and the side was constantly under the pump in front of a capacity crowd.
That partnership between Rohit and KL was probably the only time where India tried to do things differently but India didn’t force them to try often, and enough. For the English bowlers, it was about pinging the good length spot, doing some tricks in the air and the surface did the rest.
There weren’t any demons in the pitch but it wasn’t the batters’ paradise where one could hit through the line, drive on the up and comfortably pull off the front-foot. Three of India’s wickets – Kohli, KL and Shreyas Iyer – fell exactly while doing that and never allowed a big partnership to blossom.
For a nearly 20-over period, both Rohit and KL did dig deep and were pushing India in comfortable territory but ill-timed dismissals of the duo never allowed the innings to take the road to ascendancy.
A Rohit masterclass
As wickets tumbled from the other end, Rohit switched to a very calculative mode and did something which he hasn’t done in the tournament so far. Bat time.
His innings started on a sedate note while facing Willey but he was off the blocks in the left-armers second over. Two sixes and one four later, Rohit looked ready for another new-ball assault but wickets of Gill and Virat Kohli in quick succession meant he had no option to bat long and get a partnership going.
Staying in the middle looked his only priority because India, playing with five specialist bowlers in absence of injured Hardik Pandya, had a long tail to protect and needed a respectable total on the board. Sensible batting forced England to do things differently – mix up quicks with Liam Livingstone and Moeen Ali – and allowed India to collect some crucial runs in the process.
Again, it wasn’t an unplayable pitch by any stretch of imagination but needed some application and resilience to get used to the two-paced nature, and the little sponge in the bounce. Barring Rohit and KL, and SKY towards the end, no batter looked ready to spend those early deliveries taking stock of conditions.
India had cashed in on opposition’s inability to do that during their previous matches and today it was their turn to receive what they had been successfully doing so far.
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