India vs England, 2018: Number Nuggets - Key differences between England and India in 2nd Test match

Rain, overcast conditions, poor team selection by India, poor shot selection by Indian batsmen and some luck favouring England. That's how you would define the second Test match between England and India at Lord's.

England captain, Joe Root, who won the toss, decided to bowl first. This was expected considering the overcast conditions as batting under such conditions would have been challenging.

Right from the toss result, the visitors ( Indian Team ) were on the back foot, and since then, they never managed to cause any trouble to the England team, be it batting or bowling.

To understand how the players of both the teams performed, let's deep-dive into the numbers and analyze what were the key differences between both the sides.

Considering that England batted only once, the batting comparison point would be England's 1st Innings vs India's both innings. Similarly, from the bowling perspective, it would be India's 1st Innings vs England's both Innings.

So, let's first begin with the openers.

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Openers:

When it comes to overseas playing conditions, Murali Vijay has been one of the most trusted names. This is purely because of his technique and his ability to counter the swing early on in his innings.

However, in this match, he failed to even open the account in both the innings. Luck may not have favoured him as he got out to two awesome deliveries. But, as they say, luck favours the brave.

Murali Vijay failed to open the account in both the innings

KL Rahul, who replaced Shikhar Dhawan as India's second opener did nothing well. He lasted could manage only 18 runs, and lasted just 30 deliveries.

Overall, the Indian openers failed to provide a good start. They scored a total of 18 runs in 43 balls at a poor average of 4.5.

England openers vs Indian openers- Entire match

England openers, on the other hand, had a decent outing. They began well against the Indian fast bowlers by scoring at a healthy strike rate of 68.1. They could manage a total of only 32 runs between them, but that was not bad considering the situation of the match.

Comparing the openers of both the team, we would say, England openers did a better job of handling the new ball as compared to Indian openers.

Secondly, let's have a look at how the middle order performed.

Middle order:

In the first test match, it was only Virat Kohli who made a valuable contribution to India's middle order. A similar show was expected from him in this test match as well, but like other batsmen, he too fell prey to some fantastic swing bowling from England bowlers.

Overall, India's middle order performed way below par as they could manage only a meagre 89 runs at an average of just 14.8.

Sure, they were resilient in terms of numbers of balls faced, but that resilience too lasted for just 40 odd overs in the entire match.

Jonny

Baitstow

continued his good form with the bat in the second test match

England, on the other hand, were driven by a superb knock from Jonny Bairstow, whose vital 93 made sure that the home side got a comfortable lead in the first innings. Joe Root and Ollie Pope held the innings for some time, but both got out in a similar fashion to a superb in-swinger.

Overall, they could manage a total of 140 runs at a good average of 46.7 and a healthy strike rate of 60.

England Middle order vs Indian Middle order- Entire match

Comparing the middle order of both the teams, England again had an upper hand as their middle order adapted well to these conditions, and outplayed India's middle order in every department.

Moving on to the lower order, let's see how they performed.

Lower-order:

It is a very rare occasion when India's lower order outperforms their middle order. This rare sight was seen in this test match as India's lower order looked more promising and hungry to spend more time in the middle.

Hardik Pandya and Ravichandran Ashwin looked good in the second innings as they registered India's highest partnership of the match with their useful 55. Dinesh Karthik couldn't do much as he was done in by some superb deliveries in both the innings.

Now, let's deep-dive into the numbers, and understand how the lower order of both the teams fared against each other.

Ravichandran Ashwin was the highest scorer for India in the second test match

As seen from the stats, India's lower order could manage a total of 112 runs at an average of 16.7. They managed to play a total of 143 deliveries in the match.

Ravichandran Ashwin was the highest scorer for India. He scored a total of 62 runs in 86 balls at a strike rate of 72.09.

England Lower order vs Indian Lower order- Entire Match

England, on the other hand, had useful contributions from Butler, Woakes and Curran.

Chris Woakes registered his maiden century for England. It was his innings which ensured that the hosts were going 2-0 up in the series. He made a total of 137 runs in 177 balls at a superb strike rate of 77.4. He smashed a total of 21 fours in his innings. Quite remarkable!.

Overall, England's lower order like in first test match made the key difference between winning and losing.

Having seen the performances of the batsmen, let's now have a look at how the bowlers performed.

Bowlers:

In the first test match, an extra spinner would have created more impact and would have definitely given a hard time to the England batsmen.

Had there been no rain, Kuldeep Yadav was a perfect replacement for Umesh Yadav in the second test match. However, considering the overcast conditions, the inclusion of Kuldeep Yadav was a blunder by Virat Kohli, which he later accepted.

The other baffling captaincy decision by Virat Kohli was to bowl Kuldeep before Ashwin, who was India's best bowler in the first test match.

In this section, we have skipped comparing the spinners as Indian spinners performed poorly, and Adil Rashid did not bowl at all.

So, how did the Pacers perform for both the teams?

James Anderson's swing was too hot to handle for the visitors

For India, Hardik Pandya and Mohammad Shami were effective with the ball as they took three important wickets each. However, what came as a surprise was the ineffectiveness of Ishant Sharma. The speedster bowled 22 overs, gave away 101 runs, and took just a single wicket.

Overall, between them, they could manage 7 wickets at a strike rate of 53.4 and a poor economy rate of 4.2. In the process, they gave away a total of 261 runs in 374 deliveries. This is not good by any standards.

England Pace bowlers vs Indian Pace bowlers - Entire match.

For England, James Anderson was the star with the ball. Most of his deliveries were simply unplayable. In process of his 9 wicket haul at Lord's, he also became the first fast bowler to take 100 wickets at a particular venue.

He was equally supported by Stuart Broad and Chris Woakes.

Overall, in the match, England's pace attack took a total of 19 wickets at an impressive strike rate of 26.1. That's outstanding!.

Concluding the analysis, India were poor in all the departments as compared to England. This could be seen as India lost by an innings for the first time under Virat Kohli's captaincy.

With 2-0 down in the series, Virat Kohli would need something magical to motivate his team to come out of this misery. Let's see how India bounces back in the third test match.

Thanks a lot for reading this blog. We hope you guys liked it.

We plan to bring you a similar analysis for third test match.