India fall short in the Hyderabad sweep-stakes

In the 15th over of the second of two rip-roaring defences happening about 10,000 kms apart, Rohit Sharma played a reverse sweep.

He played it about as well as you'd expect a man who has played it only seven times before in his entire Test career. Bazball has done a lot of hard-to-believe things since it started. Add making Rohit look off-putting to the list.

India's captain had to go to such extreme measures because the previous ball he was beaten pushing forward to defend. And he was beaten again, pushing forward to defend, the ball after that reverse sweep.

Pushing forward to defend is the ball that the spinner had to bowl in Hyderabad.

Pushing forward to defend is the ball India couldn't bowl in Hyderabad.

At every available opportunity - and even sometimes when it didn't quite present itself - England went for those sweeps and reverse sweeps and they nailed 'em. It eventually got to the point where they were setting records.

Since 2014, only once has a team made more runs with those shots in India, and that was England in Chennai 2021 when Joe Root, who loves to take that broom out too, made a double-century.

Ninety-two runs in 56 balls, including 18 of the 42 boundaries, would be handsome returns on their own. But they had another more profound effect. All of a sudden India's great strength - the axis of R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja - was prevented from doing what they've done for years and years: land six balls on roughly the same spot, pulling and pushing the batter around the crease, picking away at their technique and making them question all of the life choices that had led them up to this moment.

Having to protect unusual areas in the field, Rohit hedged his bets. He had sweepers out on both sides of the ground, sometimes as many as five, which meant India couldn't really build up to a dismissal. An England team that was seven down still scored 72 runs in an hour of play, with 27 singles, four twos and three threes this morning. Rohit had good reason to spread the field out - India were already behind in the game and they were batting last so he couldn't risk giving away easy runs. Also, by this point, the pitch had become really slow. Like rainbow wheel of death slow. There was enough time for batters to adjust to the turn after the ball bounced.

India had been forced into a corner. "It happens," their bowling coach Paras Mhambrey said on Saturday.

Maybe. Yeah. But at home? Never before had a lead of 190 resulted in defeat.

England here was the first time in 11 years that a visiting side had made more than 400 in their second innings. And they came at breakneck pace. 4.11 an over. Only 9.9% of the spinners' overs were maidens, the lowest figure for India since Jadeja and Ashwin started playing Test cricket together.

This doesn't happen. This was a dream. An unreal fever dream.

Rohit pushes forward to defend again. Only this time the balls stays the course. It doesn't leap past the outside edge like a show pony. It slithers in, past his inside edge and onto his front pad. He's out lbw. According to ESPNcricinfo's ball-by-ball data, at tea on the fourth day, India had made nine runs from 56 good-length balls for the loss of two wickets. England had made almost half their total - 198 - off of these deliveries.

They had their luck, of course. Ollie Pope was not in control of a third of the sweep shots that he played, including one that would've dismissed him had it not been for a fielding lapse. But he never stopped trying. That is why Mhambrey said he was brave. You take a significant risk playing like that - looking stupid if it doesn't come off - but what it also did - if you practice it as hard as England do, if you commit to it as well as England did - is throw off arguably the most disciplined bowling attack in Test cricket.

Pope made a century with just his sweeps. The story behind that, in his words: "They're very skilled bowlers, the guys that we were facing and you can pretty much know where each ball is going to land and if you're trying to defend each ball there's probably more of a chance you're going to get out rather than if you're going cross-batted shots. And I feel like we've practiced those shots enough that if you get out for none playing the reverse sweep, you're not going to get a lot of chat in the change room about that.

"So I think you can go and just commit to it. I don't think I nailed one for my first 20 odd runs and I was like why isn't it hitting the middle of the bat. But out here it could be as safe as a defence playing reverse sweep or a sweep and I think if we keep sort of nailing that we get more bad balls as batters if we can hit their best ball for four with the reverse sweep then that can lead to more short balls and more half-volleys and that opens up the whole field."

India, on the other hand, preferred to ride the risk that the good length ball presented. They were happy use the full face of the bat, even when they weren't to the pitch of the delivery, in conditions that offered uneven turn and bounce. This exposed both their inside and outside edges - in Shubman Gill's case even the middle of his blade didn't help - as Tom Hartley, Joe Root and Jack Leach held their disciplines superbly. They were allowed to. India attempted only 18 sweeps or reverse sweeps.

Perhaps England could be that bit more cavalier because they had little to lose. They were trailing by 190 runs when they launched the attack that secured them a victory that will rank alongside Mumbai and Kolkata 2012. To be that far off the pace and still make that many moves without conceding even in the slightest bit to doubt. It's remarkable.

Did India concede to doubt? Maybe. Maybe not. What they did though is to try and play normally in this abnormal Test match which has had 25,000 people visit the ground on each day, which has seen over 1000 runs scored at rapid pace even though the pitch was a selectively-watered turner, which in the end only turned because for the sixth time in history a batter overhauled his team's deficit all on his own and which had a spin attack comprising a guy on one leg, another who describes himself as "right-arm optimistic" and two with a combined one Test's experience outbowl Ashwin and Jadeja.

One method doesn't necessarily trump the other. In fact there's a strong argument to be made for both teams just sticking to the ways that's brought them immense success. It's just that one of them made history and the other could only come close.