The demons are in the heads, not in the pitch

They say that the one that goes straight is always the most important delivery on a square turner. Just to put that in perspective, 21 off the 30 wickets fell to the deliveries that didn't spin. When Joe Root won the flip of the coin, we actually thought that this could be a huge advantage even before the first ball was bowled. At 74-2 with Zak Crawley making it look easy, England looked well on course to score beyond 200 which could have been a match winning first innings total on this surface. But England crumbled, collapsed and were knocked over for 112 against Axar Patel and Ravichandran Ashwin in an hour and a half in the 2nd session. Axar attacked the stumps and took 6 for nothing with his natural variations.

After being 99-3 at the start of day 2, it felt as if a session of good indian batting and the match would be virtually over. We know that you can't play catch-up cricket in india but Jack Leach found his length and Joe Root landed some in good areas to take 5-8 in 6 overs. India were bowled out for 145 with a lead of just 33. Very little did we know that those 33 were going to feel like 300. England lost 2 in the first over to Axar Patel, both to the balls that didn't turn. Stokes tried to attack and got a valuable 25 but the English batting line up could only muster 81 runs in the 3rd innings of the test.

So a total of 387 runs across 4 innings and 5 sessions of a test match, is that a good advertisement for test cricket? May be yes, may be not. The pitch played it's part but batsmen from both the sides made it feel a lot more than it actually did. The pitch was designed to suit indian spinners and I don't think there is anything wrong with it. I do feel that the pitch is being criticized because both the teams fared so poorly in the batting department that they made the pitch look much more difficult than it actually was. Majority of the batsmen played for the turn and fell victim to the straighter ones. The great Rahul Dravid once said while playing in England that you always play for the inswinger, the outswinger will automatically leave you. Same is the case on these kind of surfaces. The former greats of subcontinental batting heritage will always advice you to play for the straighter ones, the turning ball will go past the bat but it doesn't matter as long as it doesn't catch the edge. If it does, then good luck to the bowler. 

The fact of the matter is that England were just not good enough on this surface. They had the first choice of the surface and they couldn't apply themselves. Then they had another chance to put things in place in the 2nd innings but it got even worse. The truth is that England just have to get better. Excuses might earn you sympathy but they don't win you test matches in India. As Graeme Swann rightly said that England have to apply themselves and look to score rather than survive because if you look to survive on such surfaces, yoolu are not gonna last for too long. 

No one should expect a pitch any different from the one we had 2 days ago. If anything, expect England to be wise and play another spinner rather than a bloke bowling at 130. The disturbing thing for this England batting line up is that the ball is spinning from the first over of the match, not necessarily on the pitch but in their heads for sure. The demons are there in the minds, not in the pitch.