IND vs ENG 1st Test: England’s toss gamble backfires as inexperienced India dominate in Headingley

When you win the toss and bowl it’s never ideal to concede 359 runs at 4.22 an over and only take three wickets – unfortunately for England that is the position they find themselves in after Day 1 at Headingley .

If the hosts were given the option to change their decision at the toss, would they now choose to bat? Given this side’s belief in fully backing your own convictions, almost regardless of the results, it seems unlikely.

Toss decision raises eyebrows

The choice to bowl it appears was heavily influenced by the fact that the last six Test here have all been won by the team bowling first. But here is where statistics can sometimes mislead – how many of those started in blazing sunshine? Meteorological data was sadly not available to be checked, but given the ground’s location, you’d imagine not many.

Should England have given more weight to the weather on the day than the historical precedent? Having warmed up on the pitch prior to the toss they certainly can’t claim they weren’t aware of the conditions – but then altering plans based on the day’s weather has not been a recent strong point. See also: choosing to bowl first against South Africa in the 2023 World Cup despite the oppressive afternoon heat and humidity of Mumbai.

Whatever the merits of the toss decision, the truth is England didn’t bowl all that well. There was a lack of consistent control of line and length, too many times to count leg side fields were set, only for the bowler to stray wide of off stump – whatever plan the home side had, it required far better execution. Even the normally parsimonious Chris Woakes finished the day with an economy rate of 4.68 per over.

Last summer – one farewell Test aside – was England’s first since the retirements of bowling titans James Anderson and Stuart Broad. Predicted by some to be a cataclysmic event for England’s bowling attack, they actually fared pretty well – the emergence of Gus Atkinson the undoubted highlight, the relative quality of both Sri Lanka and the West Indies certainly a factor too.

In fact Atkinson was so successful, taking 34 wickets in six Tests, that England didn’t quite experiment with new faces as much as they might have. When they did, the results weren’t exactly monumental, Matthew Potts and Josh Hull took just eight wickets between them in the combined three Tests they played.

England’s inexperienced bowling lineup exposed

Ultimately, perhaps England’s biggest problem here at Headingley was the bowling lineup’s huge lack of experience. No Broad, no Anderson, no Mark Wood, no Jofra Archer – even last summer’s hero Atkinson was out with an injury. Instead, England had Brydon Carse playing his sixth Test (and first at home) and Josh Tongue playing his fourth – Shoaib Bashir seemed practically an old hand despite this being just his 17th Test and eighth at home.

Woakes and Stokes did of course, bring a combined 168 Test caps to proceedings, but this must still have been England’s least experienced bowling attack for quite some time.

Against the sparkling talents of Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill and latterly Rishabh Pant, Carse and particularly Tongue struggled to find the consistency required to really put the visitors under any pressure. Carse went at 4.37 an over, Tongue 4.68. Remarkably or perhaps crucially, this was the first First Class game either man had played at Headingley – inexperience piled on inexperience.

Were it not for the seemingly inexhaustible determination of Stokes and his two wickets, things might have been even uglier – England are understandably delighted to have him back bowling.

It should be said that these were conditions in which even a more experienced bowling attack might have struggled to make inroads, the galling thing for England was that they never really put themselves in the best position to ever do so.

England hope to have all of Archer, Atkinson and Wood back at some point this summer, but their return is not guaranteed.

Meanwhile, England’s newborn foal of a bowling attack has been thrust into the middle of the relentless pressure of a five-Test series, needing to find its feet fast or risk being torn apart by the tigerish ferocity of India’s batting lineup.