Vizag test: England loses half side trail by 352 runs on day 2

Vizag: England batsman fumbled against Indian spin once more at end day two on 103/5 ,Alastair Cook's stump was broken in half as he was dismissed for two runs.India were dismissed for 455, with Virat Kohli eventually out for 167.If Rajkot shielded England from the realities of India, Visakhapatnam mercilessly exposed them.

At 103 for five on the second evening of this Test at YS Rajashekha Reddy ACA-VDCA Stadium here today, they trail the Indians by 352, and need a miracle to avoid going 1-0 down ahead of next week’s third Test in Mohali.It was the kind of session that England fans feared in advance of this trip, and the kind of session that many a touring team have experienced in India over the last couple of years.

These things happen, and they will happen again before the series is over.But England’s path from 51 for one to 80 for five was so strewn with bodies it was hard to avoid the conclusion that we had just witnessed a defining moment.The early loss of Alastair Cook, bowled for two by a beauty from Mohammed Shami, could be put down to the vagaries of opening the batting.It was a blow, alright, not least because Cook appeared to have played himself into form during his second-innings 130 at Rajkot.

But it was not a dismissal that revealed any deeper truth.Then, with Haseeb Hameed knuckling down and Joe Root batting with his usual energy and industry, Root sent his junior partner back after calling him through for a second.Some smart work by Jayant Yadav and Wriddhiman Saha did the rest and Hameed was run out.It was an agonising way to go –and the body language of both batsmen spoke fluent despair.

Just as crucially, it meant the removal of a batsman who had otherwise radiated calm and his replacement by one who has a horrible technical flaw against Ravichandran Ashwin’s off-spin.
Ben Duckett may well have a fine international career ahead of him, and showed during the one-day series in Bangladesh –as well as in the second innings of the second Test in Dhaka – that he has a talent most players would give their reverse sweep for.

But at the moment the experts are able to point to the manner in which he is being opened up by off-breaks, moving his foot outside the line of leg stump to the ball pitched on middle and leg.
bowled for five, he looked like an accident waiting to happen.Root had played well until now, despite his part in Hameed’s run-out, and had apparently calculated that attack was the way to go.

This pitch is already showing alarming signs of uneven bounce, not to mention sharp turn.
Root knew that, if England were to have any chance, they would have to get their runs in the first innings, and get them quickly.It was decent logic.And so he danced down the track to Ashwin, who found a bit of away drift, inducing a miscue.Umesh Yadav was waiting at deepish mid-off.

Root’s dismissal brought to mind the words of Ben Stokes ahead of this game.Asked about facing Ashwin, he was refreshingly candid.‘Ashwin knows exactly where he is going to bowl every ball,’ he said.‘He changes his pace and almost seems to read you.It’s almost like you are telling him that you’re going to run down the wicket and he bowls the ball where you don’t want it to be.’Knowing this, and acting upon it, are two different things: Root was gone for 53, and England were 79 for four. (UNI)