Batty's roar is full of meaning for England

Gareth Batty could be forgiven for his roar of joy when Tamim Iqbal was caught behind.

It wasn't just that it had been 11 years since he had claimed a Test wicket (Mohammad Ashraful caught at long-on by Matthew Hoggard on June 4, 2005).

It wasn't just that, in the intervening years, he was obliged to shake himself out of his comfort zone at New Road to challenge himself anew at The Oval. "I've been meandering through things," he told ESPNcricinfo back in 2009. "I felt a need to challenge myself more and test myself in conditions where I might be a match-winner. There have been times of late when I've woken up, looked in the mirror and thought 'you're kidding yourself here, mate.'"

It wasn't even that he had set-up a batsmen who looked in fine form with a series of loopy off-breaks and then beaten him with a quicker slider.

It was also that, on a surface on which both his spin-bowling colleagues had already struck, he had already bowled 13 wicketless overs. After opening the bowling for what he believes is the first time in his career, he had beaten the bat a few times but been unable to replicate the success of other off-spinners Mehedi Hasan or Moeen Ali. It was a roar not just of triumph but relief.

Batty admitted afterwards that he was more nervous than he could recall at any stage in his career. No English spinner has taken the new ball in the first innings of a Test since John Emburey did so against West Indies in 1988 and his first ball was, in his words, "a pie" that was cut for four, but he soon settled and provided a little more control than either of his spin-bowling colleagues.

"When you're just an average player you enjoy every little bit of success," Batty modestly reflected in regards to his wicket celebration. "I felt like I'd set Tamim up a little bit and hopefully skidded it through. And it's nice to get very good players out.

"I was very nervous. I haven't felt like that for years, if ever. But that's a good thing. You feel alive. The nerves are jangling and you've got an England shirt on. Wow! What a place to be!"

He accepted England had "bowled some good balls" but failed to "hold the game" as well as they might have done. And it is true that, after Moeen claimed two wickets with magnificent deliveries in his first over, England's spinners failed to capitalise on the opening. While that is not entirely their fault - Bangladesh, and Tamim in particular, adapted expertly to the surface and the longer form of the game they play so rarely - they will reflect that there were too many release deliveries to allow them to maintain the requisite amount of pressure.

England's problem - and this really isn't breaking news - is that their spinners are either not quite quick enough or not quite tight enough. Not yet, anyway. On slow surfaces like this, good players of spin generally have time to adjust to the movement offered by Rashid or Batty and, while Moeen's extra pace helped him gain more purchase, he was not quite controlled enough to reap the rewards.

All three of England's main spinners conceded at least three-an-over (Rashid, who mixed up some gems with some full-tosses and long-hops, conceded almost four-an-over) and delivered four maidens between them in 49 overs. Bangladesh's spinners, by contrast, barely conceded two-an-over (Mehedi went at exactly two-an-over, Taijul Islam conceded 1.95 an over and Shakib Al Hasan 2.42) and delivered 24 maidens in their 82.5 overs. As a result, pressure rarely built upon the Bangladesh batsmen.

"When the ball goes quicker the batsman cannot change his mind," Batty explained later. "Moeen's two wickets were magnificent balls and were bowled at good pace. It's a question of varying your pace, but for your wicket-taking balls, a quicker one that spins big is a good ball to bowl."

This is the sort of surface on which Monty Panesar at his best - and we are going back the best part of a decade for that - might have proved devastating. While Batty, for example, turned the ball consistently, it tended to be gentle and fairly predictable. Panesar, by contrast, could hurry the batsman and punish any hesitation or error. Often it seemed he could gain more from the surface, too. But Panesar's days are gone and Moeen is the only England spinner who bowls at the optimum pace to exploit such surfaces.

While there are a few genuinely slow bowlers left in international cricket - Rangana Herath is probably the best exponent - you have to possess outstanding control and mastery of your variations to survive at that pace. Rashid, for all his tricks and skill, does not currently have that control. And when Batty attempt to bowl quicker, he loses his spin. Panesar, and to a lesser extent Moeen and Graeme Swann, were unusual in being able to retain their spin at an increased pace.

It is desperately difficult - and rare - for spinners to succeed bowling at anything other than their natural pace. It's certainly not just a question of gym work. It is more about a strong bowling action and, perhaps, the angle of the seam when the ball is delivered.

While Moeen found extra pace after some chance advice from Kumar Dharmasena there are countless tales of other bowlers losing their unique selling point in pursuit of more, or even less, pace: Rashid, for example, tends to drop short in pursuit of pace, while James Tredwell seemed to lose his spin, Even a bowler as skilled as Derek Underwood saw his performance suffer when he reduced his pace in search of more flight and variation.

The scoreboard might not show it but England produced an admirable performance on day two of this game. Their ground fielding performance was exemplified by the sight of Stuart Broad, at fine leg, diving full length to save a boundary from a powerful sweep. Their catching performance, notwithstanding one drop by Adil Rashid, was exemplified by an outstanding diving effort by Joe Root that turned out, on review, to have come off the arm of Tamim.

Jonny Bairstow kept almost faultlessly in tricky conditions. Yes, he fumbled one catch before securing it, but his work standing up to the stumps arguably represented the best glovework of his Test career to date.

And in the last half-hour of another energy-sapping day, England's seamers, led by the apparently indefatigable Ben Stokes, contributed a burst of pace and swing bowling, both of which had been absent until then, and gained an important wicket. To have produced a snorter that ripped past the nose of Mushfiqur Rahim on this sluggish surface was an almost miraculous effort. It was surely no coincidence that the same batsman, his equilibrium disturbed, nibbled at one outside off a couple of deliveries later.

But, on the limited evidence we have seen here, England's spinners will need to find a way to bowl a little quicker or tighten up appreciably if they are to succeed in India. They are not miles away. But on slow surfaces against batsmen especially proficient at playing spin, the margins between success and failure can be small: a few miles an hour or a foot or two in length. This was a decent day for England, but it's not hard to see where they need to improve.