Ben Stokes and James Anderson both drew praise from the commentators during the second Test match in Vizag for their combined effort in planning the perfect set-up for Shubman Gill‘s dismissal at the end of the morning session on Day One.
Gill caught Anderson 10 minutes before lunch, becoming India’s second wicket of the session and continuing their low scoring run. The No. 3 had 34 hits before being fired today (February 2), extending his streak of under 50 innings to 10 innings. Anderson pitched a disastrous opening spell before being brought back by Gill. He conceded just six runs in his first five overs, but had less than two overs left in his second spell when he hit Gill’s outside edge.
After the lunch break, Dinesh Karthik and Ravi Shastri analyzed how both Stokes and Anderson caused their dismissals. When Stokes had the ball in front of the wicket, he appeared to be indicating his intention to bowl a short pitch by playing the fielder back to the edge of the pitch at deep square leg.
“Very interesting performance from Ben Stokes as captain,” said Karthik. “He saw Shubman Gill come out and take a couple of balls off his front foot and asked him to go back deep to square leg… He was chatting to James Anderson and the next ball was four It’s always around the third or fifth stump.” 3.” Card tricks played by fast bowlers.
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“Gill was working hard, probably looking for a short ball. At least the seeds of doubt were sown there by Ben Stokes. “Really great captaincy.”
Gill had an outside edge boundary to Anderson on the first ball of the over and the last ball of the previous over to Gill was also off his outside edge boundary. His next three balls that Anderson threw to Gill all forced him forward and defended the point.
“You can see that the last 10 balls that Gill faced were almost all played up front,” Karthik said. “(He) made a very conscious effort to play on the front foot. As a captain, you look at this and think, how can I achieve this dismissal? Push it deep behind square leg and then move on. Small things are important in a batsman’s mind, but they are worth their weight in gold and the next ball he is dismissed.”
“He’s really a master at his job,” Shastri said of Anderson. “He attacks the stumps, he attacks the stumps, he attacks the stumps and there are very few wide deliveries. Only one goes through the slip chain.” If not, he hits all those blue markers. Yes, and the wickets he gets lure them far away.
“Look at how well it’s anchored to the stumps and to the suction ball. That’s really, really good bowling. It’s like the spinner’s length, drawing you in and tempting the batsman. Because it doesn’t give you anything, as a hitter you want to feel the ball, you want to score, and you want to get that single offside if you can.”
Anderson finished the session with 1 win and 19 losses after bowling 8 overs. It was Gill’s first Test wicket since he picked it up in the final Ashes Test at The Oval in July last year, as Mark Wood was favored in England’s XI for the first Test. .
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