Timeless Test and Tireless Efforts: Contrasting Visions for India and England at Edgbaston After Day

Cricket fans have attested to the fact that few have been able to watch right through Alastair Cook’s batting. That is because with the England opener at the crease, one had perceptive visions of tireless efforts of England who always look fresh while watching India’s pitiful woes on the cricket pitch seem to have greatly aged the Indian cricket.

Alastair Cook

Judging by some of the faces of the Indian cricketers – and some of their ardent fans - in the dressing room, one would have thought that India were participating in a Timeless Test. Indeed sudden the whole idea of a healthy mixture of youth and experience has turned into a weary bunch of men who are mere bystanders as young England blood have ruled the roost for the better part of three Tests. Perceptions can differ base don the situation and it would seem suddenly the age of the older cricketers is making them look leaden footed while the young cricketers don’t look young by age by woefully incompetent to take on the resurgence of youth which seems to be the case for England.

There is something to be said for the fact that India have two thirty-eight olds pitching contrasting battles on the field while another is on the verge of joining them. India’s handful of young talent is not showing the panache to break through the ranks and without Zaheer Khan in the team, the Indian bowling seems to be in a holding pattern where perhaps just hanging around is considered a tall achievement.

However, while one can put that down to age and inexperience as well as foreign conditions, when contrasted with the England team, it paints a rather foreboding picture of how tough it will be for India to sustain itself unless it begins a rigourous grooming process. There seems to be no hungry talent coming through the ranks. The bowling department in both pace and spin seem to need a shot in the arm judging some of the faces that have been regularly doing the rounds but without the kind of impact that would have been associated with them when they broke free. Case in point: Ishant Sharma.

England, on the other hand, have Stuart Broad and Alastair Cook who are definitively still in their moulding years as cricket would consider. For Broad, the signs that he is able to lift his game at a time when it was considered he had virtually lost his place has been a huge fillip and the reason why England achieved success so quickly in the series. Cook, on the other hand, has remained silent for the most part and none was required of him with England working like clockwork precision with the rest of the hands. However, in the manner in which he batted on, showing none of the rashness or impatience of youth, but the pugnaciousness of a man determined to be counted amongst the best and acutely aware of the traits that make up Test cricketers gave one the impression that perhaps Cook had taken a leaf from a Timeless Test somewhere in the past because in the age of Twenty20, batting for twelve and a half hours would seem like a lifetime.

And the Edgbaston Test had the makings of a timeless Test for the Indian cricket who have stayed out on the field ever since they were dismissed for 224 in the first innings. But not for the skipper’s contribution, they would have been fielding sooner. Having endured the might of a young gun over the past couple of days would have made a few cricketers weary merely from witnessing it. Whether they then have the courage to muster similar endurance in what appears to be a battle that has already been lost in the mind remains a grave concern as India head into the fourth day of the Test that could change the face of the no.1 Test ranked team.