Shubman Gill leads England a merry dance – it will be a good one to win from here, Ben!
Michael Henderson
Even if all the framers, fitters, welders, and millers in the city of crafts wished upon a star, it might not be sufficient to prevent India winning
The city of a thousand trades, they called Birmingham, when it was the world’s workshop. How England have need of those craftsmen if they are to avoid defeat in the second Test of a tumultuous, run-heavy series.
But even if all the framers, fitters, welders, weavers, millers and drillers held hands in a line from Perry Barr to Kings Heath, and wished upon a star, it might not be sufficient to prevent India winning, and claw back the match they threw away at Leeds.
Another prolonged act of grace by their sophomore skipper has given them an advantage their bowlers must exploit on the final day. Shubman Gill added 161 chalks to the 269 he notched in the first innings, to become the first batsman in Test history to make scores of more than 250 and 150 in the same match.
Gill, who made 147 in the first Test, and reproached himself for donating his wicket, is seeing the ball like a melon, and indeed there were times when England’s bowling came from a fruit stall. There were 13 fours, and he cleared the absurdly short boundaries eight times. It takes some believing – 430 runs from one man’s bat, 23 more than England managed between them. Charming runs, too, until he went berserk after tea.
Resuming their second innings on 63 for one, India eventually declared at 5pm on 427 for six, challenging England to make 608 in slightly less than four sessions. At the close England were 72-3.
India’s captain was supported by KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja, who all passed 50. Pant, by request, supplied another laugh-clown-laugh routine, brought short by a preposterous dismissal.
Driving the ball to long off, where Ben Duckett held a comfortable catch, he released his bat 25 yards towards midwicket, the second time he had flung the wood more than a pitch’s length. Goodness knows what he has up his sleeve for the third Test at Lord’s, which begins on Thursday, but it might be wise to take a shield.
It has been a wonderful four days for India, who chose to rest Jasprit Bumrah, their main source of wickets. But the match has been a self-willed disaster for England, and their captain. Ben Stokes saw his invitation to bat mocked, as India rattled up 587, and he then got a first-baller, one of six ducks in an extraordinary scorecard, which extended his sequence of dismal scores. England need their leader to balance the team, which means making runs, and the cupboard is currently bare.
‘Gill is seeing the ball like a melon. At times England’s bowling came from a fruit stall’
One hesitates to say “Told you so”, but the gods who govern cricket, benevolent to a fault, do not care to be mocked, and exact a heavy price when they are. Headingley, where Stokes also gave India first use of a good pitch, brought rejoicing. It was a remarkable win. To bowl first here, on another true pitch, proved an invitation to a waltz, which Gill orchestrated with a merry fiddle.
However, the match will be recalled for happier reasons. When he is old and grey, and nodding by the fire, Jamie Smith will reflect on his unbeaten 184 in England’s 407 as a day he did something special. So will those who saw it.
Truly this was a “watcher of the skies” moment, “when a new planet swims into his ken”, as all those Keatsians in the Hollies Stand knew. He entered on a hat-trick ball, after Stokes had nicked a catch behind, when England had lost half their wickets for 84. He struck his first ball down the ground for four, and completed a century before lunch, the third fastest by an England batsman after Gilbert “the Croucher” Jessop and Jonny Bairstow.
There was no storming and stressing like a Romantic poet. Smith played as he always does, for his talent is pure. He observed the rubric laid down by his predecessors, hitting the ball extremely hard, all over the meadow.
Joe Root, we know, is the finest batsman England have found in recent years. He is a throwback to the Golden Age, which may have been as glorious as the sages have written. To find so compelling a compound of elegance and muscularity, though, we may have to go back to Ted Dexter, who played his last Test in 1968.
Smith is the batsman England thought they had discovered 10 years ago in Jos Buttler. But whereas Buttler regarded the crease as a bed of nettles, making only two centuries in 57 Tests, Smith sees it as a hive dripping with honey. Even Harry Brook, so clean a striker, was prepared to sit on his bat as his mate took the bigger share of the 303 runs they added for the sixth wicket. Fancy. Brook made 158, his ninth Test century, and everybody was talking about Smith.
His was the best score made by an England wicketkeeper, and the best by any England batsman coming in at fifth wicket down. It was much more, though. It was the most ringing declaration yet of a talent which seems inextinguishable. In this form he seems to have a key for himself, and a lock for the bowlers.
So garlands all round: for Mr and Mrs Smith, for giving us so gifted a son; for Whitgift School, where he refined that gift; and for Surrey, who sharpened it. This young man, not yet 25, has entered Test cricket on golden wings, and we will all feel a bit better for watching him fly.
Zak Crawley, alas, remains earthbound. The Canterbury Charmer sliced an extravagant drive in the second over to backward point, to provide Mohammed Siraj with his seventh wicket of the match, and leave the batsman in the doghouse.
Crawley and disappointment go together like plum brandy and indigestion. Deep then plucked two luscious plums of his own to disturb the stumps of Duckett and Root. England need only another 536. It’s a good one to win.
Photograph by Stu Forster/Getty Images
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