India’s innings and 64-run victory over England in Dharamsala completed a 4-1 rout in the five-Test series. It was India’s 17th consecutive series win at home and took the team to the top of the 2023-24 World Test Championship table. But India’s biggest takeaway from the series is that their inexperienced batting lineup held firm. In the absence of top stars Virat Kohli and KL Rahul, India refused to take a step back and recall veterans Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane. In their absence, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel and Devdutt Padikkal stepped up: Jaiswal (712 runs) became only the second Indian after Sunil Gavaskar to score more than 700 in a Test series; Khan made a sensational debut with a counter-attacking 50 in Rajkot; Jurel’s game-changing knock in Ranchi and his partnership with Kuldeep Yadav has pretty much sealed his place as a keeper-batter in the Test side; and, Padikkal made a solid 65 in his debut Test in Dharamsala.
The second biggest takeaway was that it answered a two-year-old question: Will Bazball work in India? The answer is no: Not with this England lineup, not with the skills at the disposal of their current team, and definitely not with their inexperienced spinners.
Test cricket is a complex game and needs a nuanced tactical approach depending on the pitch, climatic conditions, and the opponents. England’s ultra-attacking approach was unidimensional. England batters, except for Joe Root, lacked the skills to survive the Indian spinners. What Ollie Pope did by sweeping and reverse-sweeping his way to 196 in Hyderabad helped England go 1-0 up in the series. What it also did was force the Indian spinners to alter their length. So, lacking defensive skills and with the sweep going out of the equation, the English batters were left with just intent. That wasn’t enough and the team lost four Tests on the trot.
