Australia's Travis Head, left is congratulated by teammate Australia's Steven Smith on getting 100 runs not out on the first day of the ICC World Test Championship Final between India and Australia at The Oval cricket ground in London, Wednesday, June 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth) As the evening meandered on, an inaudible wail of helplessness rang around the stadium from India’s deflated bowlers. All they might have wanted was the ordeal of the harrowing day to end soon, to begin fresh anew. But the trauma would drag on, until stumps were drawn at the score of 327/3, most of the runs scored by Travis Head (146) and Steve Smith (95) in an unbroken 251-run stand. The bowlers and fielders stuttered tiredly into the dressing, with knackered limbs and battered minds, looking pensively towards the sky.
The insipid evening, or even the spiritless afternoon, when Head freewheeled to an audacious hundred in the company of a serene Smith, would hurt them less than the wasted morning. It’s the same heart-breaking narrative that touring Indian sides have endured for as long as the country started touring.
Call it the first day, first Test bowling syndrome, an incurable affliction.
The profligacy of the first-day morning of a Test in England, when they were bestowed with everything they could dream of, yet squandered them like a reckless millionaire in Las Vegas, resurfaced. There was cloud cover, the sun emerging late in the session; there was swing, the ball hooping around wildly at times; there was bounce and carry; there was uncertain Australian batsmen; there was Mohammed Shami and Mohammed Siraj, two fine exponents of swung and seam bowling.
Stumps on the opening day of #WTC23 Final!
Australia ended Day 1 at 327/3.
See you tomorrow for Day 2 action.
Scorecard ▶️ https://t.co/0nYl21pwaw#TeamIndia pic.twitter.com/G0Lbyt17Bm
— BCCI (@BCCI) June 7, 2023
Yet, they misspent a session that could have put them in the driver’s seat to win the World Test Championship. The start was dreamy—pressure-piling maiden overs punctuated with the wicket of Usman Khawaja with a precise Siraj wobble-seamer. But the dreaminess ended there. Both Shami and Siraj beat the bat of both David Warner and Marnus Labuschagne, hit Labuschagne on his fingers, kept the crowd wincing and sighing, yet they could not purchase a wicket for the next 18 overs, until Warner gloved softly down the leg-side. It was nothing but a gift of a wicket, of a directionless Shardul Thakur short ball.
Failure to hit fuller length
As is often the case, India’s pacers failed to hit the fuller length—the length that batsmen dread on the first morning of a Test in England— on a consistent basis. Just 20 percent of their balls landed in the full-length territory. It made batsmen’s life considerably comfortable—they could sit back and defend or punch, rather than suckered into driving.
That’s how you do it.
The first #WTCFinal century pic.twitter.com/EgGIBZtx9b
— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) June 7, 2023
Shami later realised the virtue of bowling fuller when he castled Labuschagne through the gate with his fullest ball until then at the start of the second session. By that time, the sun was glazing down and batting was friendlier. The momentum had been irrecoverably lost.
What was worse than not making enough dents with the hooping Dukes ball was offering free runs. Siraj and Shami at least suffocated the batsmen and rarely bowled a boundary ball. The introduction of Umesh Yadav and Shardul Thakur expanded the boundary-belting canvas for Warner and Labuschagne. Yadav, rusty and rickety, hit the right notes in his first over, before rolling back his years to the scattergun avatar and ended being spanked for four boundaries in an over. He would either be too short or too wide, and without the bustling pace that makes him lethal. Yadav averaged 23.5 in England before this game, but that was when he used to hit fuller lengths and extracted delightful away movement at pace. This was a shadow of Yadav, underwhelming and uninspired.
Thakur, too, seemed gingery and remotely sharp. The designated workhorse, he ended up leaking 4.16 runs an over, worse than Yadav’s 3.85. Risk lingered in choosing Yadav and Thakur, the former sans game-time and the latter without any concrete form in the lead-up. Both could cry hoarse over lack warm-up games, but then they knew that beforehand. They did produce an occasional beauty, but had not the persistence to pound the same area and bargain a wicket. Without the support of the support cast, the lead men faltered, and by the end bowling like men who had burned all their hopes.
Shardul Thakur gets the breakthrough!
A sharp catch by KS Bharat as David Warner departs for 43 runs.
Live – https://t.co/0nYl21oYkY… #WTC23 pic.twitter.com/jIJDwxM6Zh
— BCCI (@BCCI) June 7, 2023
Bereft of ideas
All of them seemed bereft of ideas and plans when Smith and Head began to put them to sword. They devised fanciful plans to nip Smith, like placing two fielders, each just at an arm’s length, in the midwicket region for the aerial flick. Desperation sinking them, they kept fidgeting and altering their plans, not sticking with any for a concerted period. When Head steamed into his 90s, they unleashed a bouncer barrage, but it seemed a ploy too late. Head, in the middle phase of his career, was shaky against Ravindra Jadeja. The left-arm spinner beat him on the drive as well as the cut, but survived. For a while, Jadeja kept things tight as he normally does, found turn and purchase, but then Head and Smith counterattacked him into submission. Like his colleagues, he too lost mastery over his lengths. His first three overs conceded just seven runs, his next 11 leaked 41.
Teams do recover from horror first sessions, but India were flat and plain in the second and third session. They stood dazed as Head climbed through the gears sinisterly and seamlessly. Whatever unfolded next was a reaction to an event. If Head struck a boundary through point, a fielder would be moved from mid-wicket to point. But the bowler would stray into his body and he would ruthlessly flick. The first day’s footage should be a case study on how bowlers don’t bowl to their fielders.
By the third session, the energy on the field too dissipated. Even the ever-effervescent Virat Kohli too lost his voice; Rohit Sharma turned numb in despair; the bowlers limped through the crease. What was more appalling than their lack of application was their lack of discipline and fire, the energy to plough on, the drive to fight on, and they find the game drifting towards a gloomy end, right on the first day.
There are times when the conditions conspire; when batsmen are in unbreakable form, but what would hurt India here is that they defeated themselves, in their own ineptitude. The same old first-day first Test syndrome came to haunt them again—only that there are no second chances this time.
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