A drawn series is befitting of a wonderfully balanced contest between two great teams 
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India didn’t deserve to lose that series.
Can’t help but be pissed off with Smith though. Last proper batsman and he played like an idiot.
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Atkinson is a capable batsman. He wouldn’t have played like that with another batsman on the other end
Wouldn’t say two great teams. Balanced teams though
India were the better team over the period of the entire series. And they’ll be kicking themselves over not winning one of the two matches they ended up losing.
The take away for india is that it’s a young batting line-up and the batsmen can take some good learning experience from this going forward. Also they’ve found a way to win 2 test matches without their best bowlers
I don’t see any takeaway for England there. They are going to get destroyed at the ashes.
Just watching 405 after the test match…yes I know India won…the series is a draw…but didn’t England play aswell…can we please have comments from England…
That’s not how I see it.
There are definitely question marks over Crawley, Pope, Bethel and where we’re going to find a good enough spinner…but Duckett, Root, Brook, Stokes, Smith (normally), Atkinson, Archer, Wood (if he’s fit) is a strong 8 out of 11 for the conditions down under.
Australia have greater problems.
Archer and wood are injury prone. Duckett will be a sitting duck against fast bowling. Stokes isn’t a guarantee to be there for all 5 test matches.
There are 5 or 6 of the playing XI being question marks.
Got to hand it to England, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory twice in one match takes some doing.
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But he handed the initiative to India and got them on the roll that won them the match. All he had to do was not go chasing outside his off stump. It’s not rocket science.
I hope he learnt from it.
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And don’t see Wood and Archer being able to play more than 3 tests in a 5 test series. Much depends on Stokes the bowler as well too.
There’s definite question marks there in the bowling as well. England might be better off not taking an off spinner to Australia. If memory serves, Australian conditions are rather brutal to foreign offies. Even the likes of Murali struggled there big time.
They’ll keep faith, rightly or wrongly, with Crawley and Pope I reckon, and Bethel is a work in progress.
The spinner is a major concern. I have no idea why they have so much faith in Bashir.
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Me neither. I’d actually prefer to just go to Root for the slow stuff at the moment. Better having another seamer in the attack than padding out the side with a mediocre specialist spinner, particularly one who offers nothing with the bat.
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It feels like a Lyon project. Someone initially there to plug an end, give respite to the attack and in time grow. Otherwise, who knows.
Root could do this as others have said.
Root can roll his arm over and probably get in a few overs to make up the overrate. He’s not a bad option in that regard. Allows the team to take in an extra bowler too. It’s better than taking some untested spinner to australia and destroying his international cricket career.
Can’t really understand why local lad Tom Hartley hasn’t been considered. I thought he did quite well in India..
Decent spinner and recently got 130 for Lancs .
Bleh, Indians have the habit of gifting wickets to mediocre/average spinners in India. Remember Kreza for australia ?
The problem with that is it’s not a long term solution. Root has maybe 18 months-2 years left playing for England.
I personally think you should be blooding a young spinner giving them time to grow into the role, Lyon spent many years early in his career having questions about if he was good enough to play for Australia, but the selectors stuck with him giving him the time to grow and establish himself
You probably should but Bashir isn’t that answer. Sort of reminds me of how long they held on to the idea that Leech was decent.
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Root, as good as he is, is not a spinner and there is always the worry that the added burden risks blunting his advantage. In addition he is at the twilight of his journey while Bashir at the beginning.