Cricket: World Test Championship India — all-round powerhouse
Following on from my introductory piece, this article will look at how India managed to top the inaugural World Test Championship (WTC) table.
How it played out
The chart shows each of India’s first knocks in their Test matches since the start of the WTC. Green denotes a win, red a loss and there’s a solitary draw; the Sydney Test from January 2021. The areas shaded in blue are away from home.
What’s immediately clear is that, in their early seven-match winning run, India’s batsmen dominated. They just failed to make 300 in the first of these Tests but thereafter scored an average of 476 in the next six first knocks.
They were only bowled out once in these six innings too. Across this run they averaged a first innings lead of over 240.
South Africa and Bangladesh were on the end of absolute pastings, with India only needing to bat once in four of the five Tests against these two opponents. The West Indies, by contrast, were relatively competitive, at least for the first half of each of their matches.
India then met the Kiwi seamers on the lush pastures of Wellington and Christchurch, and for the first time in the tournament failed to dominate the first half of the match.
In the first Test they were bowled out for 165, going at below 2.5 runs an over for 68 tortuous overs. The top three made just 61 between them, the engine room — from Kohli at four to Pant at seven — scored 74 and the bowlers could only chip in with 26.
Second time out, India made a bit of a better fist of it, scoring 191. But the damage was done as the Kiwis had a lead of 183 — making the fourth innings, and the ten wicket victory, a formality.
The second Test in NZ was a bit more even at the halfway mark, with sides almost on par at the turn — India’s 242 just edging New Zealand’s 235. India folded again in the second innings. Although they set the Kiwis a potentially tricky 130-odd, it was seen off comfortably.
There were about nine COVID-dominated months before India travelled to Australia. The relatively-recent experience at the hands of world class seamers prior to their arrival in Australia probably felt like an experience under the belt; something to learn from — but the nadir was yet to come.
Adelaide. 36 all out. Unthinkable.
The real shame was that, whilst they didn’t exactly have Australia by throat, India took a handy first innings lead of 53 into the-innings-we-shall-never-speak-of-again.
Let’s not speak of it again.
India fought back. A first innings lead led to a win at the MCG; they saved a high scoring draw in Sydney and then won at Fortress Brisbane with a side ravaged by injury. Now that really was historic.
And beautiful.
And sport-as-human-drama at its most distilled.
England would have hoped this distracted India a bit, and maybe it did. England’s 578 in the first Test in Chennai had India in the field for a gruelling 190 overs — some 60 overs longer than any of India’s opponents other first innings. It was only the second first innings over 400 India had been on the end of in the WTC, and it would be the last.
In every sense, it was an outlier.
Normal service resumed in the final three Tests — although India found the series against England the toughest in terms of dominant first knocks. Up to then, India’s first knock had averaged over 360; England kept them to an average of 294. England’s first knock average of 257 suggests a close series — though the mammoth first Test inflates that; England were down to 150-odd in the final three Tests.
By the end, India had done enough to top the table. But did they peak pre-COVID?
A lopsided WTC?
The first seven Tests saw high Indian scores and opponents score low. India scored an average of 450 versus opponents scraping just over 200. The last eight Tests (so ignoring the NZ Tests), India still kept opponents down to a pretty good 265 (or 220 if you exclude the blip in the first Chennai Test) but their own scores fall dramatically: down to an average of 291 — so still a lead but they went into the second half of matches much closer to their opponents.
Is this a schedule effect? Very possibly. The first seven Tests were against teams that were never in the hunt for the final, whereas the last eight (indeed: ten) were against the rest of the ‘Big Four’. So it should really come as no surprise some air was let out of India’s first innings scores and the matches were closer.
A look at India’s batsmen
In terms of the individuals who contributed the most, let’s look at players in the first knock.
The chart below shows Indian batsmen’s first knocks (with a minimum of four innings played), comparing first knock averages with first knock strike rates.
This gives a sense of both accumulation of runs and dominance. As with the overall team performance, the focus here is on the first half of the match as by the time you get to bat for a second time there’s just too much damn noise.
So what does this show? That Washington Sundar breaks the chart.
Thanks Washie.
The horizontal axis marks a rate of 50 per hundred balls, or in old money: three an over. The higher above the line you are, the faster you score. Of the serious batsmen, it is no surprise to see RR Pant — going at about 70 runs per hundred balls — the highest.
But it’s the averages that are most striking.
Rohit Sharma is averaging 71 in the first innings. Wow. For an opener: pretty damn tasty. There are no ‘not outs’ fiddling this figure either (looking at you, Washie).
Rohit’s total first knock runs in the WTC stands at 781. Only Ajinkya Rahane (799) was higher — but Rohit only had 11 innings compared to Rahane’s full house of 17 knocks.
Rahane averaged 47, so there’s no question he was also a clear contributor to India’s success, but Rohit is on another level and, for me, India’s WTC batting MVP.
The only other Indian player to make more than 700 runs was Mayank Agarwal. He joins Rohit Sharma in the fast- and high-scoring group — along with everyone’s favourite spinning all-rounder Ravi Jadeja.
Where’s Virat Kohli? He’s been more than decent: averaging 48 and scoring at 57 runs per hundred balls. It’s a top class contribution if not (tin hat on…) a world class contribution.
Kohli’s 624 first dig runs is also clearly very good, though he made 41% of his runs in a single innings of 254. Take that away and he’d have averaged a mere 30.
Don’t mention to Kohli his three — count ’em: three — first knock ducks. There’s no point: he’d just stand there looking at you as if you must be quite, quite mad.
A focus on Pujara
Someone who will not look back on these last two years with much fondness is Chet Pujara. He was ever-present and scored 492 runs across these 17 innings. That gives him an average of under 30 to go with his slower scoring rate.
He may be in the trickiest part of his Test career, as the following chart shows.
Looking at his rolling 10 first knock innings average, he went into the WTC (marked by the dotted line) in good form, averaging over 73, but ended the WTC down at 31.1.
If I were he — or his captain — I’d be worried that the rolling 10 innings average dropped over 40 runs during a tournament in which he didn’t score a hundred in any innings.
Pujara been down here before — at the end of 2014 his rolling first knock average was down to 23.0 — but this was the average from a run of Tests away (in NZ, England and Australia) where he struggled; he followed this up with 145 in Sri Lanka and by the end of 2015 his rolling average was back to over 35. By the end of 2016 it was over 60.
So let’s not write Pujara off. However……
He’s also not quite the relentless stonewaller you might think, either.
His average of 76 balls faced per first knock innings places him only 6th amongst Indian batsmen who batted in more than half of the WTC first knocks. He spent less time at the crease, on average, than the other leading batsmen; scored more slowly and in lower volumes.
Ouch.
For India — presumably once the final is behind them — Rohit Sharma picks himself and if they want to persevere with Shubman Gill (who had a very lean series against England after a promising start in Australia), would the top three be better served by Rahane moving up the order?
Rahane faced an average of 101 balls in each first knock, and scored more quickly to boot. Maybe he had a natural advantage, often joining Kohli at the crease, but nonetheless Rahane looks a good fit for a Test top three. It would also open up a berth in the middle order and allow India to regularly select another young gun batsman — a Shreyas Iyer, perhaps, or Suryakumar Yadav or one of the Pandyas — without altering the balance of the bowling attack.
Alternatively, India may be better served by having Agarwal in the top three. He posted better numbers in terms of total runs, average, strike rate and balls faced per innings in the WTC than Pujara.
Bottom line: Pujara needs to party like it’s 2014 and score some runs in Test cricket. India have options who look ready-made to allow them to make a change, if they want to.
Let’s hope Pujara shows what he can do in Southampton in June.
India with the ball
And then there’s the bowlers. The data this time is across all innings: it’s simple for the bowlers, isn’t it? Whenever you have the ball in hand: get wickets and be economical.
This chart cross references the economy rate (horizontal axis) with the strike rate (vertical axis) for all bowlers with a minimum of one wicket. So the guys towards the top right are economical wicket takers.
I’ve set the strike rate dotted lines at a wicket every 50 balls (which is a very good rate indeed) and again at 72, which is the average for the whole WTC dataset. The economy rate dotted line is set at 3 an over. That seems like a reasonable midpoint from which to note those tending to the expensive and those tending to the tight and hard-to-score-off.
Yeah: Axar Patel. He’s there. He’s about as ‘top right’ as it gets. A small sample — but beautifully formed. As he plays more Tests he’s bound to revert to closer to the mean, but what a talented bowler he is.
If I’m lauding Patel then I have to also highlight Ravichandran Ashwin. His strike rate was a shade under 47 and his economy rate across 524 overs — four times more than Patel — was 2.66. His 67 wickets came at an average under 21. That’s world class stuff and there’s no doubt Ashwin is the premier spinner in Test cricket today, and definitely the standout spinner in the WTC.
India’s top right quadrant is pretty crowded. It’s actually stunning. Indian spinners and seamers; the experienced guys and some young bowlers. Alongside the spinners, the quicks Ishant Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami also put up performances that would mark them out as leaders of any Test pace attack. Between them they took 106 wickets at an average of 19.80, went for 2.86 an over and took a wicket every 42 balls.
There’s no great secret here: India have every type of bowler and they have at least five who are putting up numbers that mark them out as world class — and to that they add Ravindra Jadeja (28 wickets at 28.67), Umesh Yadav (29 wickets at a scarcely-believable 18.55 each) and Mohammed Siraj (16 wickets at 28.25). What a fabulous collection of bowling talent.
If I’m coach Ravi Shastri I’m thinking we have an attack that can be balanced towards spinning or seaming conditions and be wholly confident it will deliver. We can pack a touring party with bowlers who can — and do — do the business.
India’s performance with the ball was exceptional. Eight of their 14 wicket-taking bowlers averaged under 25, between them taking 238 of India’s 303 wickets.
Overall
India were a formidable team during the WTC. A very strong start got almost blown off course around the antipodes, but they clung on, fought back and won cricket lover’s hearts everywhere (except Australia).
They then suckered England in Chennai before handing out a beating that’d make a Norwegian football commentator recommend it to Lady Di and Maggie Thatcher.
The batsmen delivered in their first innings, though lately the pummelling scores of 450 have been replaced with competitive scores of 250. That might be a schedule effect — but they’ll have to think about that before facing off against New Zealand.
For the WTC final, Southampton should give a decent balance between bat and ball, but it’ll still be NZ quicks on an English pitch. In June.
Pujara will undoubtedly play — but he needs a score. He’s climbed out of a trough before, but he was in his mid-twenties then. Can he do again as an elder statesman?
And the bowlers? Kohli could choose his attack by picking names out of a hat and he’d have a world-class, well-balanced line up the envy of any opposing captain.
India are well worthy of their first place in the WTC rankings. They dominated the first half of their tournament and, with the number of young players coming into the side, look set fair to have an effective and exciting Test side for years to come.
Next article: England.
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