Andy Zaltzman: It’s too early to call Stokes’s decision at toss a mistake

Stat of the week: When Ben Stokes won the toss and asked India to bat, it was the 17th time in 23 Tests in England since 2022 that the  toss-winning captain has chosen to bowl first – as many as in the first 234 Tests played in England, from September 1880 to June 1972.

When does a captain’s decision at the toss become a “mistake”? As the words “We are going to bat/bowl” come out of their mouth?

When their opponents reach 359 for 3 at the end of day one, as happened to Ben Stokes after deciding to bowl first at Headingley on Friday, having conceded more runs on the first day of a Test than England had in any game since South Africa pummelled them for 362 for 4 at the Oval in 2003?

When they see their own team bowled out for 78, as happened to India when they last played at the ground, in 2021, after Rohit Sharma invited Jimmy Anderson to unleash his mastery in helpful conditions?

When he remembers on the way back to the pavilion that Australia had one of the greatest batting line-ups of all time, and averaged 452 in their last six innings when batting first in Brisbane, as Nasser Hussain might have done in November 2002?

When do prevailing statistics for a specific venue start to become a deceitful trickster, rather than an all-knowing sage? Aside from Stokes’s philosophical commitment to bowling first in home Tests, which he’s done on nine out of ten occasions since being appointed captain (won six, drew one – dominantly – and lost one of the previous eight), the Headingley stats almost barked ‘bowl first’.

The team batting first had lost the last six Tests in Leeds. Stokes’s toss decisions seem to be based as much (or more) on what he wants to happen in the final stages of a match as what he wants to achieve at its start.

Since 2011, the best innings for batting in Headingley Tests had been the fourth (36.0 runs per wicket), followed by the third (32.7), then the second (29.9), with the first innings (26.9, before this Test) toughest for batting. It is the only one of 81 grounds that have hosted Test matches in this period in which average Runs Per Wicket increases from 1st to 2nd to 3rd to 4th innings.

It was the 17th time in 23 Tests in England since 2022 that the toss-winning captain has chosen to bowl first, as many as in the first 234 Tests played in England, from September 1880 to June 1972.Furthermore, India’s batting line-up, while potentially brilliant, looked vulnerable.

Yashasvi Jaiswal in his first Test in England, after low scores in recent warm-up matches, KL Rahul averaging 28 in his last 20 Tests, debutant Sai Sudharsan at three (the first India debutant to bat in that position in the first innings since Saurav Ganguly in 1996), Shubman Gill at four under the new burden of captaincy and with 88 runs in his six previous Test innings in England, an out-of-form Rishabh Pant at five, Karun Nair at six having not played Tests for eight years, Ravindra Jadeja at seven, also in a statistical slump with the bat, Shardul Thakur at eight with 141 runs in 12 innings since twin fifties at the Oval in 2021, then a weak tail.

By the end of the first day, Stokes’s decision looked unlikely to succeed. Jaiswal added to his catalogue of series-opening centuries, Rahul laid the kind of patient platform he did in the first two Tests in 2021, and Gill, having survived a run out chance on 1 that could have diverted the match into a different narrative course, became the fourth of India’s 37 men’s Test captains to make a century in his first innings as skipper. On day two, the decision to bowl started to look less wrong.

Some of those Indian frailties had been exposed, as the visitors became the first team in Test history whose top six had scored three centuries and bagged two ducks in the same innings, before their tail subsided – the 16 runs scored by numbers 6 to 11 was India’s second worst such total in 137 matches against England. By the time you read this, the rightness or wrongness of Stokes’s toss call may or may not have become clearer.

Cricketing decisions become right or wrong based on outcome, as the logic that informed them dissolves as the story of the game unfolds.

In the second Bazballistic era Test, in 2022, Stokes put New Zealand in on a good batting pitch at Trent Bridge.

England conceded 318 for 4 on Day One, which became 553 all out on Day Two, before winning the match on Day Five. England also won that Oval Test in 2003. Hussain was the fourth consecutive toss-winning skipper to choose to bowl at the Gabba, and the sixth in seven Tests (and four of the next six Brisbane Test tosses resulted in a captain deciding to bowl). Statistics always come with caveats.

Cricket stats are not alone in liking big Buts, but, in contravention of accepted tradition, can lie, do lie, and, even when they are not lying, do not always reveal their truths until days have passed.

Photo by Gareth Copley/Getty Images