The first match of the Investec Test Series at Trent Bridge drew to an end with both captains agreeing to stop the match rather than bore the crowd any further. Only 29 wickets had fallen in the whole match on a pitch that can only be described as being dreadful for Test cricket. Trent Bridge usually produces lively tracks with pace, bounce and movement, which has made it Jimmy Anderson’s favorite hunting ground, where he has picked 50 wickets. Anderson did have another great match at Trent Bridge, but that was inexplicably as Jimmy Anderson the batsman, as he scored his highest Test score of 81, and was never at any point troubled by the Indian bowlers. As a bowler, which is his main trade, Jimmy was completely harmless.
The fact that tailenders for both teams had such a good Test with the bat, much better than their performance with the ball is a damning indictment of this Trent Bridge wicket. Cricket is fun only if there is an equal contest between bat and ball. If bowlers are forced to bowl on such wickets, without any life of any sort, then we may as well expect all the 5 Tests in this Investac series to peter out to boring draws. Test cricket is dying all over the world, and producing such placid tracks only hastens the eventual decline. Cricket administrators must understand that cricket is a spectator sport and entertaining the worldwide TV audiences is most important. There is no fun in playing a Test in an empty stadium, but this is what we are headed for, if the quality of the pitches in this series do not undergo a rapid transformation soon enough.
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India began the fifth day of the Test at 167 for 3, and perhaps the match would have been slightly interesting had the English bowlers got a few early wickets. England did get the wicket of Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane in quick succession because of a great spell by Stuart Broad early on. But there was still hardly any hostility in the track, and even after losing MS Dhoni’s wicket a little later on, India’s lower order batsmen applied themselves to the task and saw through the day without much damage.
Ravindra Jadeja played a patient innings for change, consuming as many as 98 balls to make just 31, which was highly uncharacteristic of him. Debutant Stuart Binny was dismissed for just 1 in his first innings and hardly got to bowl when England batter, so his Test career was on the line. To his credit, he showed that he was a decent enough batsman, making a well composed 78 off 114 balls. But the harmless nature of the pitch means that he cannot yet be called as “Test class” on the basis of this performance.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar has had a great Test match, having made a fifty in the first innings and taken 5 wickets with the bowl. He did his reputation no harm by making yet another half century, an unbeaten 63.
The match turned into a farce at the end with almost everybody in the England team turning their arm over. Gary Ballance got an over and so did Alistair Cook – who with his strange bowling action somehow got Ishant Sharma to nick him to Matt Prior on the leg side, gifting Cook his first ever Test cricket. Cook was pleased as a punch, but what would make him a lot happier is a massive hundred in the next Test at Lord’s when the Investac Test Series resumes this Thursday. Cook’s lack of form has been worrying but he is very fortunate that there is no express speed of Mitchell Johnson or Dale Steyn for him to contend with – just the medium pace of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammad Shami and Ishant Sharma.
