Grim times linger for England as India take historic Lord's test

Notwithstanding how Ishant Sharma’s spiteful delivery to Moeen Ali with the last ball before lunch crucially gave India renewed hope on the final day at Lord’s, the desperate debacle that ensued after the interval was the stuff of nightmares.

Sitting in the Grand Stand with my two sons, I had enjoyed the morning session, watching MS Dhoni’s clever field placings both encourage attacking shots by Ali and Joe Root, and yet largely nullify them.

However, despite the odd alarm here or there, runs were gradually accrued. Wickets were not forthcoming. There was a lady two seats to my right bedecked in a light blue ODI top. She had yelled “Come on India!” moments before the first ball of the day, but had gone awfully quiet by around 12.45pm.

And it was easy to understand why. Ali and Root were playing at classic Test match tempo, only attacking poor balls. Having battled through the floodlit fourth evening when balls shot along the deck, leapt up and swung around a bit, now the batsmen found life a little easier. There was still plenty of spin for Ravi Jadeja and co, but Ali and Root were dealing with it.

Sharma’s wicket really helped India, as it justified the short-ball tactics which Dhoni had implored from the bowler. Sharma is the only tall fast bowler in the Indian team, but his position has been questioned at times, perhaps his belief too. No wonder he needed Dhoni’s encouragement. After lunch, the skipper just had to keep giving Sharma the ball. England were ready to hit self-destruct.

Exhibit no. 1 for the prosecution: Matt Prior – out-of-form wicketkeeper dropping catches, with fitness issues, but at his best a fine counter-attacking batsman. A glimmer of the old Prior was there when Sharma misdirected a couple of his bouncers, and he attacked them outside off to collect boundaries each time.

But Prior currently has no technique for dealing with the straight bouncer: he either gets hits, fends a catch away, or top-edges a catch to the deep. This time, deep midwicket was the beneficiary of Prior’s present.

If that was scarcely believable, then Ben Stokes didn’t do a lot better, the left-hander splicing a catch off another ill-advised pull before he’d got off the mark. The game appeared to be gone now for England, but just to make sure Root presented a seventh wicket of the innings for Sharma with yet another catch arcing gently in the milky summer sky off a poorly executed pull shot.

In an obscure way, history was repeating itself. In 2009, England beat Australia at Lord’s with one of their most complete performances in recent times. Six Australians in the first innings were dismissed getting the pull shot wrong. Now, not only were England the victims, it was India, a nation never noted for its demonic pace bowling, meting out the punishment. The shame of it!

As much as we can admire Sharma and Dhoni, the all-round zest of Jadeja, the tenacity with the bat expressed by Ajinkya Rahane and Murali Vijay, it is all too easy to kick the dog on the floor that is England.

There have been 10 Tests without a win (the first of those celebrated by a urination ceremony at The Oval 11 months ago). Of those 10 winless Tests, seven have ended in defeat. Alastair Cook may not want to resign but he’s England’s record century scorer of all time and we need those runs back; we don’t need his captaincy.

Prior has made one task easier for the selectors by pulling out of the last three Tests on fitness grounds. But they have many more jobs to attend to – and they are rapidly losing public support.

Ever since the ECB arrogantly dismissed the paying public as “people outside cricket” in one of its pompous missives during the winter, it has built a disconnect with supporters that will continue to widen while the defeats mount up. This is a grim time indeed in the house of English cricket.