Good morning and welcome fellow early risers or both-end candle-burners to the first day of the fourth India vs England Test from Ranchi. Over the course of the series we seem to have flipped from ‘Bazball vincit mundum’ to hang Joe Root’ in little more than three weeks, optimism and equanimity replaced by exasperation and contempt. England have incited joy and rage in equal measure over the past 40 years and even though Ben Stokes, Brendon McCullum and Robert Key have transformed a Test side that looked lost and hopeless in the Caribbean in early 2022 following their dismal Ashes campaign into one that given this observer more moments of genuine, gob-smacking pleasure over the course of two years than any other, we still cannot resist rushing to judgment mid-series. Not that the players are listening to the condemnation but premature adjudication is still a curse and if they fail in India, I can assure you having sat through miserable nights on subcontinental tours in 2016 and 2021, they have at least had a go and rattled the hosts on occasion. Context still counts.
Anyway, all is not lost. England have fought back against South Africa in 2022 to win the series and were irrepressiible in the final three Tests of the Ashes to secure a draw, which was the least they deserved. They won here in 2012 from one Test down, too, and Stokes, Root and Bairstow, the batting line-up’s engine room, have all shown glimpses in this series, Bairstow in Hyderabad, Root in Rajkot before that shot and Stokes throughout, that they are capable of contributing a match-defining innings. Plus there is no Jasprit Bumrah here.
To do so, I think England will need to win the toss. Bowling fourth on this pitch, using the height of Ollie Robinson and Shoaib Bashir on a cracked and crumbling surface while India try to pull off a run chase, would be the most orthodox path to victory. I was going to write a fourth/fifth day pitch but having seen the photos and read the reports, a three-day Test appears most likely. Which makes the toss even more vital. Win that and the ordeal of taming the mercurial and brilliant Yashasvi Jaiswal and the ominously talented Sarfaraz Khan becomes a little bit easier.
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