At one end, there was 41-year-young James Anderson, playing his 184th game on his 22nd year in the Test career. On the other end, it was just young Yashasvi Jaiswal, just around 10 months old in the Test arena, and still both looked apart from the rest of 19 players, taking part during the second Test between England and India in Vizag.
Jaiswal was around a year and half old, when Anderson made his Test debut against Zimbabwe. Roy Key, the current managing director of the England team, was part of the very Test match along with Micheal Vaughan and Nasser Hussain, both of whom do commentary nowadays, while Ashley Giles has played his role as the England coach. Ahh, then there is Andrew Straus, who came after Anderson, and retired almost 12-years ago, playing 100 Tests.
Yet, the red wine is still going, with self-belief and motivation to keep coming with new plans and challenges, something that the young Jaiswal could take note of.
Anderson to Gill & Jaiswal- A story of fast-forward generation
In the current England team for the Test match, the debutant Shoaib Bashir and Rehan Ahmed were not even born when Jimmy made his debut. Apart from Sachin Tendulkar (25) and Shivnarine Chanderpaul (22), only Anderson (22) has appeared in most calendar years. Exactly 100 Test caps have been gifted by England between Anderson and today’s Bashir.
At 41 year and 187 days old, he is the oldest pacer to appear in Tests in India. And then when he started his new ball opening spell against Rohit Sharma and Jaiswal, the wobble delivery with outswing and inswing hitting the right length, and making the batter coming forward, and beating the edge on a consistent basis- it felt like a 20-year-old was running with a face mask.
Anderson’s biggest weapon in his Test career has been his consistency to bowling to a batter at a specific line and length. When he came back just around 40-mins before the lunch break against a under performed Shubman Gill, who was looking good for a good score on a belter, the field was set to keep it tight. He almost got him in the first over of that spell, only for Joe Root to divide on his right and still not getting his fingers.
But so what, with the amount of drops Anderson has seen on his bowling, he is not a new customer in the shop. He went back to his mark, and kept it tight against Gill, who was easily using his feet to cover the line and ignore the swing.
Anderson, with some discussion with Ben Stokes, moved the square leg back in the fence, and asked Gill to be ready for the bouncer. And India’s number three fell on the trap. Expecting a short ball, his legs were jammed at the backfoot, and his hard hands went fishing to the next delivery to get the edge, which was brilliantly grabbed by Ben Foakes. It was fifth time Anderson hunted Gill. The same bowler who used to trap Tendulkar- nine times in Tests, and Virat Kohli (7) in the past India generations- got a new trick against the new superstar.
Even he was displaying an awesome exhibition of reverse-swing against Jaiswal, who was giving him the full respect Anderson deserves. It was quite amusing to see the eonian beating the edge of the batter, who by then had already played more than 200 balls on the surface. India ended the day at 3.61, Jaiswal at 70 strike rate and Anderson? 1.80 with 1/30 in 17 overs under the heat of Vizag.
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Jaiswal- The young man on the right track in his own method
One of the discussion going around 1 in the afternoon in the commentary box was what lessons one should give to a young aggressive player in a Test match, who wants to take his game in his own flamboyance. And if a young player like Jaiswal could open the discussion of Virender Sehwag with his style of batting, he perhaps has done something fast and better than he thought by then.
When Jaiswal threw his willow against Joe Root in the first over for a uppish drive for a boundary, the ball could change Jaiswal’s destiny. He looked in balance and in a different mood from the very first minute of the game, but it was a different style of plan than Hyderabad.
He wasn’t putting much work in his defense in the first Test, and that was the change he brought in this game and needs to be like that in the stretch of his career. There were times in Vizag today, when Jaiswal got three to four boundaries, when before Stokes could change his field position to bandage the run flow. But when there were times to stop the show, and giving respect to both the bowler and the conditions, he managed that really well.
It needed a huge heart for him to step out and go for a six to bring up just his second Test century, and for someone who is so young, and has just lost a chance of a century in the same fashion in the last Test, and when there is so much pressure if you part of an India set-up, specially with the kind of scrutiny one goes through in the current world, Jaiswal took a huge step.
His 179* at the end of the day is the highest individual score on Day 1 in India since 2011. He had cramps, and when you see your senior partners give away their starts that easily, you can delve in the fashion, but that was the point, when he decided to keep himself intact for a refreshing day.
Leave out Jaiswal, and India stood under poverty with the bat
The question is how do you read the first day’s play? Very rare it happens that the team batting first on the first day of a Test match in India gets to 336/6, and still feel disappointed with their performance, it’s rare but in the current world, it’s the reality.
India was robbed of the victory in the first Test even after taking 190-runs lead, and that was purely because they left out so many runs in the ground, and England took full advantage of it in their own ‘Bazball’ fashion. And India did the same mistake on another day with the bat. Had it not been for Jaiswal, they could have been 250-300 all out on such a batting surface.
If one look at the fall of wickets, like Rohit getting out in the leg slip, or Gill fishing on a dry surface, or Shreyas Iyer looking to cut the ball, or debutant Rajat Patidar getting played on because of the bounce of the delivery, or Axar Patel and Srikar Bharat, both making short half trackers felt like the ball of the centuries, one would feel taking wickets is the easiest job in India on the first day against the home side.
The bottom line is very cold and comfortable to understand. There was bull fight between two poles in the age bar- Anderson at one end, and Jaiswal on the other, and then there were rest of the India batting line-up, who looked to be jogging on the railway track. And if India thinks, they are ahead in the game because of the score, believe me, they are swimming on a wrong pool.
It’s day of two generations, and it’s a day India won’t be happy, and England would, and the score is 336/6 with the later bowling.
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Author: That mAd wrIter
Someone who loves how Steve Smith from being Australia's future Shane Warne has become present Don Bradman, gets inspired by Anderson's longevity, gets awed with Kohli's drive and Southee's bowling action. Never gets excited with stats and records, and believes in instincts, and always questions spinners bowling with the new ball.
