Clash of methodologies promises Ashes thrill to continue

CHENNAI: During the last few overs of the nerve-shredding Ashes opener at Edgbaston on Tuesday, it wasn’t hard to go back to the last time a Test in India went down to the wire. The India vs New Zealand at Kanpur in the winter of 2021 didn’t have the same atmosphere, prestige or stake but it was important because it set the tone for Rahul Dravid’s new regime. Like the first Test at Birmingham, it was also the beginning of a new WTC cycle at home.

On a seemingly slow surface which refused to crumble the way India thought it would, the visitors held out against the two Ravis, Ashwin and Jadeja, as well as Axar Patel. No 11, Ajaz Patel (2 off 23) and all-rounder, Rachin Ravindra (18 off 91), dead-batted for almost 10 overs in dying light on the last session of the final day.

With more home WTC points at stake in the 18 months since Dravid and the management didn’t want to take any more chances. With two world-class and one elite spinner in their ranks, they opted for pitches that would bite, grip, jump and turn before tea on Day One. Throw in normal subcontinental conditions and these pitches were weaponised.

Dravid alluded to this after the Indore debacle. “Sometimes, obviously with WTC points at stake, you are looking to play on, sometimes, a wicket that produces or gets results,” he explained. “It can happen at times and not only in India… even across the world, you are seeing that at times it’s difficult to get that balance perfectly right for everyone. And that can happen, not only here but it’s happened in other places as well.”

The key part of that Dravid remark was ‘get that balance perfectly right for everyone’. Why Bazball (a term originally coined by an England journalist) is a breath of fresh air is because the Ben Stokes-Brendon McCullum partnership have flipped the script on its head. While India and a few other nations decided the best way to get results was to give bowlers lots of help, England have gone the other way: giving their batters the chance to set the tempo. Now, this works because they are anyway going through a golden batting generation. With pitches by and large staying true (it usually doesn’t go through the top soil in less than two sessions) anyway, this has given rise to Tests going deep into Day Five.

It’s also why totals in excess of 250 are being chased down. In the last 12-and-a-half months alone, England have made 279, 299, 296 and 378 in the 4th innings. Australia’s successful chase of 282 has to be viewed in this context. The sport has conditioned its fans to think that anything above 200 in the fourth innings/ last day is tough. However, that could well be a thing of the past in England.

But does that necessarily mean the Edgbaston pitch has to be bottled and rolled out in other centres? It’s true that pacers, spinners and batters all had their moment in the sun but it was a painfully slow wicket (all those played-ons weren’t a surprise). Lord’s (venue for the second Ashes Test) will certainly be quicker — it cannot be any slower — but it will certainly favour the batters more. “We have been clear with the ground staff what type of wickets we want,” Stokes had said a few months before the Ashes. “They have been responsive. We want flat, fast wickets. We want to score quickly.”

This, they believe, is the best chance to win a home Test (or Tests anywhere as they showed on the roads of Pakistan). Over the next five weeks or so, this clash of style against Australia will continue. England will maintain their zeal while Australia, cricketing zealots, will not waver from what got them success in the first Test. If Australia can win the Ashes for the first time since 2001, will Stokes-McCullum receive a reality check on their new ideology? If England regains the urn, will other teams change their methodology (empower batters on surfaces which aid strokeplay) in search of home wins in the WTC era?
It’s why the second Test can’t come soon enough.