England have been able to score a lot of runs there, but it isn’t necessarily because of bad balls
Sidharth Monga30-Jul-20251:31
What should India’s pace attack look like for The Oval?
Tempers are fraying, bodies are tiring (and falling apart in some cases), it is getting dark well before 10pm. It is still only the end of July, but we are already at The Oval with its end-of-series, end-of-summer vibes. It has been more than a month of attritional back and forth between two imperfect sides, who by now are hard to separate. India are averaging 45.55, England 42.52, a sign of a tough-to-call series.India have still dominated more sessions and days, but when they have messed up, they have done so spectacularly and before getting themselves into impregnable positions. Spinners have mostly cancelled each other out with 14 and 13 wickets. India’s spin wickets have come less dearly, but England have had Ben Stokes as the fourth fast bowler to counter that.Surrey are used to playing without a spinner at The Oval, which should suggest it is going to come down to one last push from the fast bowlers from both sides. India’s fast bowlers will feel they have bowled better overall, creating more chances and averaging slightly less, but they need to work out why they haven’t been decisively more effective than England, whose fast bowlers barring Stokes and Jofra Archer have largely looked innocuous.Related
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India have bowled better lengths for longer than England, who haven’t had that accuracy. They have swung the ball more and extracted as much seam movement as England, but still India’s fast bowlers have conceded 51% of their runs on the leg side as against England’s 47%, who have actually looked to bowl straighter on purpose with a leg slip in place. That is something the team has taken a note of as well.Again, it’s not as though India have necessarily bowled poorer lines. India have strayed down leg less often, and have been at the stumps or in the channel roughly as frequently. India have swung the ball into the right-hand batter twice as often as England but that is not at the expense of the outswinger. That is because India have bowled much fewer balls that haven’t swung. Against left-hand batters, India have swung the ball more often than England, and swung it back in less often.The difference perhaps is that the England batters have taken more risks and turned the ball to leg more often. It is borne out slightly by the control numbers: England right-hand batters are in control of 85.6% of their shots into the leg side, India 90.61%. The numbers are similar for left-hand batters. It tells you India are working only bad balls into the leg side, but England are more enterprising. It helps that the pitches have been so flat that the batters have not been punished enough for their errors.2:08
How do India’s five regulars cope with the quick turnaround?
As the series has progressed, India have taken a more pragmatic approach to batting, which is to grind the bowling down, which shows in their dropping scoring rates. It has worked for them: Josh Tongue, Brydon Carse and Archer have failed to take a single wicket in overs 30 to 80. It might not be wise to ask their batters to become more enterprising.It remains to be seen if India look to address the leg-side runs at all. It was a source of frustration at Old Trafford, where the bowling coach Morne Morkel even said he had rarely seen a wagon wheel with equal runs on the off side and the leg side. There are two ways to exert better control: either move a little wider outside off or move straighter with an extra fielder on the leg side.However, if The Oval pitch is spicier as the teams seem to expect it to be, they will need to keep repeating good lengths and looking for top of off. It is only if England get into a partnership that India need ways to slow them down. Be it the chase at Headingley, the partnership between Jamie Smith and Harry Brook at Edgbaston, or the whole innings at Old Trafford, it is when things are not happening for them that India are looking for control.When England bat well, India just want to avoid being batted out of the game. They will hope they don’t encounter such a situation at The Oval, but perhaps they need to remember that it is more a combination of selection (one strike bowler too few every time plus rushing an undercooked Anshul Kamboj), pitches, and England batters’ enterprise than what the bowlers have actually bowled.