Posted by We could have gone with “Monty Panesar’s back“, but we’ve actually done that joke about him twice before. You have to draw the line somewhere. We fully expect you all to now tell us that we’ve drawn that line incorrectly.
But let’s not bicker about whether a joke should be repeated word-for-word, again and again, until everyone loses the will to live; or with slightly different wordings, again and again, until people lose the will to live – this is a time for rejoicing. Monty Panesar is playing and entirely unsurprisingly, he’s taken four wickets. If we had the power, we would crown the man ‘king of good times’.
But what does his performance mean for the match?
The problem with an England spinner taking wickets on day one of a Test match is that he also stabs at the confidence of his batting team-mates, causing untold damage. Maybe it would have been better for the team if Panesar had wheeled away ineffectively and India had declared on 560-1. Not a team player. Drop him for the next Test.
The pitch is certainly doing a bit, but R Ashwin has 60, so it is at least possible to bat on it (at least late in the day, when the aggregation of marginal losses has come into effect). The batting approach should perhaps be similar to the last match – minimise damage until the going’s slightly easier.
Incidentally, we exclude Cheteshwar Pujara from the above analysis on the grounds that he is impossible to dismiss and very possibly an entirely different species from the England batsmen.
Pujara is nothing short of incredible. The Test Match Sofa crew were saying England has dismissed him once (for some ungodly hundreds of runs) at all levels of cricket (including U-19, etc)
I always mentally call him “Chester” Pujara. It just seems to fit. I’ve nothing against Cheteshwar, but “Chester” is so underused in these times.
They made a mistake not picking him for the first test, they really did.
He really seems to have mastered the McGill thing of coming in to the team and overshadowing the number one spinner. If Swann or Broad took their batting more seriously, you could have argued for one of them at 7, Prior at 6 and Monty a constant. As it stands, Stuart and Graeme seem content to stagnate as batsmen so Monty will have to either dethrone Graeme or wait for his chance.
Top player though – love the joy he shows upon getting a wicket.
/\ What he said
Not sure the criticism of Swann’s batting is too fair. With Bressie, Broad and Prior in he’s been pushed so far down the order he doesn’t get chance to do other than a thrash for 25. Broad is the big disappointment. Maybe if Bressie is toast they will be pushed into taking some responsibility.
I think the English management has at last made a correct decision of playing two spinners in the match because the pitches certainly do seem to favour the spin bowling.So you have to make the decisions according to the scenarios and the current conditions of the match and in the wicket that is not favouring pace bowlers so got to have two class spin bowlers like England have.And I think that Panesar should have played first match too.So let’s hope England wins this second match and keep the series alive.