India waits for proactive captain Sharma to turn up for Vizag Test

One Test down, onus on India captain to show more initiative with bowlers and set a batting precedent

- Somshuvra Laha

KOLKATA: For all the platitudes India have earned as an indomitable force at home, how they failed to pre-empt their usual vanquishers-left-arm spin and a variant of the sweep shot at Hyderabad is nothing short of perplexing. On the first day, England looked out of depth, out of ideas and probably a bowler short.

And yet by the final day, on a surface that had blamelessly slowed down without compromising on turn, the same England looked more in sync for victory. This, despite India carving a 190-run lead, and then reducing England to 163/5 in the second innings. How did it go all downhill from there?

Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel going off the boil together is rare. But this is also an Englan side buoyed by a mindset that made it attack 54% of the balls bowled to the highest for any team in India since records were first made available in 2006. Thing is, Rohit Sharma believes his bowlers didn't err.