Sanjay Manjrekar Calls out Extremely Weak Bowling During the Recently Concluded England-India Series

Former India player highlights the imperfection that existed in the England vs. India Test series.

Sanjay Manjrekar Calls out Extremely Weak Bowling During the Recently Concluded England-India Series

In background: Mohammed Siraj and Shubman Gill, In circle: Sanjay Manjrekar (Image via Hindustan Times/Cricket Addictor)

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The recently concluded England vs. India Test series has been hailed as one of the best of its kind. Many have also placed it next to iconic series like the 2005 Ashes and the 2021 Border Gavaskar Trophy. Well, if one does agree on the closeness and hard fought competition of the series, there is also an argument that there were bits of ordinary cricket from sides to balance it out.

With wickets in the first four Test matches so flat, batters made merry of it with a plethora of individual hundreds being scored. Indian captain Shubman Gill in the second test match went on to score over 400 runs to prove the point further.

Even when the tracks got slightly more even, like in the third Test at Lord’s, bowlers looked rather ordinary and didn’t look penetrative. Former India player and current commentator Sanjay Manjrekar didn’t mince his words while talking about both the bowling attacks in his column for Hindustan Times.

Sorry to burst the bubble, it has to be one of the weakest bowling attacks from both sides that I have seen in a series featuring two mainstream teams.

Sanjay Manjrekar wrote

Manjrekar was very clear with his opinion of these bowling attacks not having the same venom as any other such series between two high quality teams. One would agree with his point of view as players like Jasprit Bumrah and Jofra Archer weren’t available for all Test matches.

Bumrah played three out of the five games, and Archer was available for just two. Their regular partners in crime weren’t physically fit to take part entirely in the series. Bumrah didn’t have Mohammed Shami with him and Archer lacked the company of Mark Wood.

Pedigreed bowlers like Mohammed Siraj and Chris Woakes were there, but the absence of the mainstream bowlers did steal some of the glitter with the ball. It was only in the last Test that the wicket offered some spice and bowling looked threatening. Siraj famously finished off the job for India on that last day.

How did the bowling attacks fare in the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy?

Right throughout the series, there were multiple batting records that got toppled, and batters from both sides felt comfortable doing their job. In such a run scoring series it is interesting to see how the bowlers, who many believe win tournaments, fared in the five-match contest.

Indian Test team celebrating a wicket taken by Jasprit Bumrah.
Indian Test team (via NDTV Sports)

If one has to go by the statistics, then India would be the better bowling side with three of their bowlers featuring in the top five highest wicket takers’ list. Mohammed Siraj topped the list with 23 wickets to his name.

Jasprit Bumrah, who just played three matches, managed to take 14 wickets and slot in as the fourth best bowler of the series. Prasidh Krishna also carved out 14 scalps for himself and slotted at five. The English side saw Josh Tongue rule the charts with 19 wickets and was second to Siraj.

Captain Ben Stokes was phenomenal with the ball. He bowled relentlessly for his 17 wickets and put his body on the line multiple times to win games for his side. With Akash Deep getting 13 scalps and Chris Woakes bagging 11, they were the other two bowlers to have taken more than 10 wickets in the series.

Apart from this lot, no bowler was able to take more than 10 wickets from either side and struggled to be much of a force with the ball. India was slightly more effective with their spin attack as well, with Washington Sundar and Ravindra Jadeja proving to be more effective than Shoaib Bashir when it came to a match winning impact.

Bashir got 10 wickets, and the Indian spinners each got 7. However, it was their added contributions with the bat that made them more of a force in the series. A long series does wear down the bodies, but fans would wish to see the absent names playing the next time these two teams play so that the glitter is present with both bat and ball.

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