Ind vs Eng 4th Test: Can India script an injury-time comeback?

England don’t just hold the 2-1 lead in this series going into the fourth Test at Manchester, they seem to have the rub of the green as well.

At least when it comes to injuries. England announced early that they were making only one change to the team that won the third Test, bringing in Liam Dawson, the veteran left-arm spinner, into the eleven in place of Shoaib Bashir, who injured a finger on his left hand while fielding. Dawson will be playing only his fourth Test, at the age of 35, after eight years in the cricketing wilderness. Dawson has had decent returns at the domestic level over the last few seasons and was thought to be the best person to play a role in Bashir’s absence. His first three Tests yielded seven wickets at an average of nearly 43.

India, meanwhile, have plenty to think about when it comes to team composition. Shubman Gill, the captain, confirmed that both Arshdeep Singh and Akash Deep were unavailable. Nitish Reddy has already been ruled out of the rest of the series.


This meant that Jasprit Bumrah would certainly play — and logic dictated that anyway with the series being on the line — and that Anshul Kamboj, the 24-year-old from Haryana, was likely to make his Test debut. Kamboj has played only 24 first-class matches, but he has 79 wickets at an impressive cost of 22 per scalp and is also handy with the bat.

India’s other option was to play Prasidh Krishna, but he has not lived up to the billing thus far and offers little with the bat. India also confirmed that Rishab Pant was fit to keep wickets and Gill backed Karun Nair to come good, suggesting that all he needed was one decent score to turn things around.

While England wore a settled look, India were swirling a touch, but it was in similar circumstances that they pulled off victory in the second Test. So, they will not feel hugely disadvantaged. What was a bit unusual, however, was Gill’s invoking of the spirit of cricket. Gill is only three Tests old as captain, one of which included his now well publicised exhorting of Zak Crawley for time-wasting tactics.

“A lot of people have been talking about this, so let me clear the air for once and for all. The English batters on that day had seven minutes of play left. They were 90 seconds late to come to the crease,” said Gill. “Not 10, not 20, 90 seconds late. Yes, most of the teams use this tactic. Even if we were in a position, we would have also liked to play fewer overs. But there’s a manner to do it. But to be able to come 90 seconds late on the crease is not something that I would think comes in the spirit of the game.”

This is a supremely slippery slope to be on. After all, the rules exist for a reason, and umpires are at hand to enforce them, even if perhaps they are not always as proactive or strict as they can be. When Gill says there’s a “manner” to do it, which would be acceptable, this is problematic. Different teams will see different things as acceptable, based on accepted practices growing up playing the game and cultural differences.

If Gill was only stating his position to get under the skin of the opposition, that’s a perfectly legitimate approach. After all, England made it clear that they had engineered a mindset shift of their own in this context. “It was good fun, ” Harry Brook said of the fracas with Gill. “We watched the Indians go hard at Creeps (Crawley) and Ducky (Duckett). We had a conversation, we thought it was the perfect opportunity to not be the nice guys that we have been in the past three years, to go out there and put them under more pressure than what they have probably had before.”

Brook pointed to how this had come from within the set up. “He (McCullum) actually said a few days before that we are too nice sometimes, and I brought it up the night before the last day: ‘Baz said the other day we’re too nice, I think tomorrow is a perfect opportunity to really get stuck into them’.

England used this sense of outrage to funnel their aggression in the pointed end of the third Test and it worked for them. But, only because they did so from a place of calm, and as a strategy. If Gill is doing the same, there’s no reason India can’t be similarly galvanised. But, if he genuinely believes that it is the world against him and his team, it may well become a self-fulfilling prophecy

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are that of the writer. The facts and opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of www.economictimes.com)