Posted by India’s most newsworthy selection for this Test was their decision to bowl Deep – but it’s notable they set themselves up to bat deep too. That particular move seemed to leave tail-amputating Josh Tongue with fewer targets. How would he respond?
As previously reported, in the first Test India were 453-5 when Tongue took his first wicket of the match and 349-6 when he belatedly made a contribution in the second innings.
We’re calling him The Late Show. Ben Duckett calls him The Mop. His captain mimed the consumption of rabbit pie.
Sorry to use the above image again. We have the same relationship with it as we do with Dave’s Insanity Sauce. We can’t believe it can possibly be as bad as we remember it, so we give it another go and turns out it absolutely is as bad as we remember it and we’re filled with regret. You can’t go back though. All you can really do is quaff milk until the pain subsides. (What’s that? Delete the image, you say?)
Somewhat ironically, India’s deep batting in this match only really ends with Akash Deep at number nine. A mere three tail-enders does not make for a good recipe for a Josh Tongue seven-for. Except one of his first wickets in the first Test was in fact a top order batter.
Remember? He hit a Pant leg.
Rishabh Pant had 134 when this happened. Because as well as snaffling tail-enders, that’s the other thing Josh Tongue has been doing in this series. He’s been dismissing well-set batters.
In the first innings of this second Test, The Late Show watched India make their way to 414-5 and then LEAPT INTO ACTION.
He then took two wickets – India’s two top-scorers – Ravindra Jadeja for 89 and Shubman Gill for the small matter of 269.
This is a useful thing. It is definitely better to dismiss a batter for 269 than to let him carry on and make 369 or 469. A bowler who dismisses set batters and mops up the tail is ticking a couple of important boxes for his team. ‘Actually being physically capable of bowling more overs’ is a third one.
All good stuff, but what we’re thinking here is that it would be helpful for England if Tongue – or someone else – would do a rather better job of ticking the ‘dismissing specialist batters before they’re well-set’ box.
You don’t need Deep knowledge to be aware that’s the first and biggest tick your team requires.
