India find new depths to Test potential with Kanpur win

At 10.44 AM on Tuesday, more than an hour after he had found his way to the middle to perform a rearguard act for his team, Najmul Hossain Shanto attempted to reverse sweep Ravindra Jadeja.

A captain, who had been on the defensive with his team all along the Test, chose the wrong moment, the wrong player and the wrong shot to display his adventurous side. That rare attempt at attack seemed out of place because Bangladesh had complied with different rules till and after that moment. They had placed themselves in a completely defensive position throughout the Test and allowed the decision to prove counter-productive.

Even if too late, there was another rare moment when they tried to find out what would the attacking scenario have looked like. With only four more runs to defend in a Test match that lasted less than 180 overs, Taijul Islam urged the fielders on the boundary to come up, and tempted Virat Kohli to go for a glory shot to end the match. Kohli countered the bait by opting for a hard sweep instead, which he mistimed and got only a single. On the next delivery though, Yashasvi Jaiswal, who had zoomed to his second half-century of the match, took on the bowler, mistimed what he hoped could be the last shot of the contest, and was caught at cover.

With all the fielders in the inner ring, Bangladesh stretched India to what was an inevitable victory by that point. For a team that had gone above run-a-ball for the first 86 runs of the chase, took 20 more deliveries to buy the last nine runs.

The attacking approach by the visitors though came far too late. So off-guarded they were caught by India's early onslaught that for most of India's batting, across the two innings, the fielders were primarily stationed near the boundary fence. In the first innings, India didn't rely on the cosy singles that were on offer and preferred to attempt the harder hits. In the second, Kohli and Jaiswal made ample use of it though through the course of their 58-run stand.

With nearly eight sessions of the game getting washed out, it would've required both teams to go on the offensive to force a result. With Bangladesh opting for a more conservative approach, the onus fell squarely on India. On a slow and low surface, wickets were a hard purchase, but that India managed to pick nine of them on the fourth day, while also completing their innings, testified to their intent. With the bat, they overhauled Bangladesh's first innings score at a rate of 8.22 - the fastest ever in Test cricket. In fact, even in ODIs they've batted faster only thrice in an innings where they played the full quota of 50 overs.

"Once we bowled them out for the first innings, Rohit was very clear that we needed at least 80 overs to bowl at them," R Ashwin revealed after India's win. "I think we bowled them out in 70 overs or something (74.4) in the first one. So having that surplus 10 overs was always going to help because they could defend and the pitch was pretty good. The moment he said that on the field, I thought maybe we will battle one hour after the start of play today.

"But when we gathered inside for a small meeting, he did mention that we are going to go hammer and tongs. And Rohit said '400 runs in probably 50 overs. And then if in that bargain we are going to get bowled out for less than 200, it's still okay. Because we have made a game of it.

"Saying that is one and obviously when he said that, we know how Yashasvi was going to play. But Rohit walked out and just tonked the first ball for a six. So when you walk the talk, obviously the dressing room doesn't have any other choice but to follow that same pattern. We had 50 runs in three overs and there was no looking back."

Their approach on the penultimate day had thrown Bangladesh off their plan and forced them to be reactive, none more blatant than the spreadout field while India were batting, while the spinners were darting deliveries, many a time even outside their hitting arc.

Heading into the final day, there wasn't much to separate the two teams, yet the visitors had made their plans clear: safety first, while India were hunting for a win. What prompted such a contrasting decision had as much to do with India's approach on Monday as it was due to the reputation they carried. Bangladesh's coach Chandika Hathurasingha confessed that it was a case of facing a superior team, a team whose 'system has improved beyond sight' since the last time he saw them in 2017.

"This defeat is really hurting us," Bangladesh's head coach admitted. "This (India's approach) was never seen earlier. All credit to Rohit and the Indian team to come up with that approach, and make a match out of this. We actually didn't react quick enough."

India's aggression not only impacted the manner in which they set the fields or the lines they bowled, it also led to some bizarre errors on the field. Amidst all their defensive strategies though, there were spurts of attack from the visitors.

For 62 minutes, in the company of Shadman Islam, Shanto had held up Bangladesh's hopes of saving the Test. In that period, Rohit had thrown all his options at them. The spin attack of Jadeja and Ashwin, the unconventional fieldsets, Akash Deep's attack from around the wicket, and even the most potent threat of Jasprit Bumrah. The left-handed duo got past all of it, and left Bangladesh in the most optimistic position they had found themselves in on the final day.

That dismissal proved decisive. Three more wickets followed in the space of the next 22 minutes and Bangladesh were just left with their tail to drag the innings along. By the time they were bundled out, India needed 97 runs to win with two sessions of play left. Suddenly, time wasn't at a premium in the game, and expectedly India finished the formalities with nearly as much aggression as they had put on till then.

Coming at the back of a historic series win in Pakistan, the whitewash in India has pushed Hathurasingha to more self-reflection of his team. "One reason for the batting failure was the quality of the opposition was really high. The skill level on display in this series (by India) was very high.

"So, we are taking a lot of learning from this and that's a positive. Going forward, we need to know what the top standard is. This is the best team and the best competition in terms of international cricket. Coming here, playing in India is the toughest assignment at this stage. So, we know how much we need to improve."

That the Kanpur Test lasted only 173.2 overs and that the Kanpur Test witnessed a last-day finish are both equally true. Put together, it's also equally descriptive to explain the reasons why the two teams approached the game in the manner in which they did.

312 balls is all that India batted. It was the fourth least number of balls taken by a team to win a Test. It was the best run-rate India had batted with ever in a Test match. In fact, it was the best run-rate maintained by any team across two innings. The urgency of the win may have been triggered by the World Test Championship points at stake. It has allowed Indian cricket to explore the depths of their own potential, avenues which they might not have otherwise gone to, just like in Dominica 2011. Or maybe it's just a mantra that Indian cricket has taken ever since Virat Kohli had attempted the final-day chase in Adelaide in 2014.

Not that it required the Kanpur Test victory to enhance India's reputation as a Test team at home, where they haven't lost a series in 12 years. Yet, so emphatic and so different was it from all their other wins, that it eventually went on to add to the aura of invincibility that few teams have enjoyed over a century of Test cricket. There are few games in Test cricket that can dull the viewing of England's Bazball currently. India at Kanpur 2024 was certainly one of those.