It was a fabulous day for England yesterday, easily the best Alastair Cook’s men have had since the end of the disastrous Ashes tour of Australia, earlier this year. There were wide smiles in the England dressing room, with the crowd at the Rose Bowl, Southampton lustily cheering for the English batsmen, and in particular, the sensational Jos Buttler, who lived up to all the hype around him and showed exactly how good he was.
The only question regarding Buttler’s position in the England team was why he wasn’t brought in earlier, much earlier, when he was evidently so good. Buttler made a fantastic more than a run-a-ball 85, smashing 3 sixes and 9 fours, taking the Indian bowling apart as if on a mission. In Buttler, it’s early days yet, but it does seem that England have discovered their own Adam Gilchrist. That such a brilliant player has had to wait so long to make his debut reflects shortsightedness on the part of the English management and selectors. But at least, Buttler is now an England Test player and is likely to remain one for the next decade, quite easily. In Buttler, England finally have that special player with that “X-Factor”, that Kevin Pietersen used to have before he was thrown out of the England team. England have many young, solid, meticulous, dependable batsmen in the Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott mould, such as Sam Robson, Gary Ballance, Moeen Ali and Joe Root, but they desperately needed a match winner, somebody capable of turning any match situation on its head, someone capable of destroying any Test bowling attack and scoring at much more than a run-a-ball pace. Jos Buttler is that player, and selecting him in the side is England’s first step towards reclaiming lost ground in Test cricket.
It was also Ian Bell’s day. The stylist, but unassuming England batsman put up one of his typical masterful displays of batting, which had been missing all summer. Bell regained the form of old which helped him win, almost single-handedly, last year’s Ashes played in England for his team. Bell made 167 before getting out trying to up the scoring rate, hitting 19 fours and 3 beautifully timed sixes. Gary Ballance, the centurian from the first day’s play, also played a part, sharing a huge 142 run partnership for the third wicket with Bell and getting his highest Test score of 156, in only his sixth Test match. Ballance has had a glorious run so far in his short England Test career, and he will hope for it to continue.
The other great partnership of the day was between Bell and Buttler, and they added 106 runs in super quick time, completely dominating the demoralized Indian bowlers. Indian bowlers were embarrassingly ineffective here at Rose Bowl. Every Indian bowler went for tons for runs, with little success. Ravindra Jadeja was especially expensive, going for 153 runs off his 45 overs, and only getting a couple of wickets. Pankaj Singh, the debutante, had possibly the worst debut he could have asked for and one would be surprised if he ever gets to play another Test match in his career. Singh was completely ineffective, losing pace, control and confidence, more he bowled. He went for 146 runs off 37 overs of harmless military medium paced bowling, and deservedly went wicketless.
England finally had enough when Buttler got out, and declared at 569 for 7. The Indian openers walked out to a well rested James Anderson and Stuart Broad, who were menacing and fast. Shikhar Dhawan, as has become a feature of every innings played by him in this series, did not last long, tamely edging Anderson to captain Alastair Cook’s safe hands at first slip. Cheteshwar Pujara and Murali Vijay held on grimly, even after being subjected to a barrage of short pitched deliveries by the English fast bowlers, and managed to end the day without further loss.
An exciting third day’s play awaits us tomorrow, as we look forward to how the Indian batsmen fare against an English bowling unit that has its tails up.
