England immediately went to Mark Wood when Shreyas Iyer walked out to bat following Shubman Gill’s dismissal on day two of the first India-England Test and after some awkward plays and misses, he survived.

It was one of those mini-battles that did not make big waves before the Test, with all the chatter, unsurprisingly, revolving around the spinners. When England named only one seamer in their XI, it was more customary than anything, but Mark Wood’s responsibilities increased when Iyer walked out in the 35th over.

One ball after Iyer was at the crease, Wood was introduced into the attack, bowling only his third over and first after over No.3. The thinking was clear: Bounce out Iyer just like they had bounced him out twice at Edgbaston in 2022.

Despite Iyer’s claim that the short ball doesn’t “trouble” him, his reputation against them has dwindled with rival captains looking to trouble him with bouncers.

Wood, however, started by bowling to Rahul, who was on strike for the first ball of the 35th over. By the time the over ended, Rahul had smoked him for three fours, allowing Iyer some time to acclimatise himself to conditions before he faced the England speedster. On a hot day, being hit for three fours straight up would have sapped some of that energy.

When Wood finally bowled to Iyer, his eighth ball back into the attack, he had a fine leg, short leg, short midwicket and deep backward square leg. The intention was clear but Wood started with a length ball. The thinking, perhaps, that with the field telegraphing an incoming bumper, Iyer becomes more vulnerable to the good length delivery, as he was in the World Cup final. Iyer plays and misses at his fist ball, a good length delivery that flies past his edge.

Two balls later, Wood went short and Iyer swayed away. He attempted an awkward pull next, the ball hitting him high on the bat, but he was lucky to survive.

Playing pull shots on slower wickets is riskier than playing them on bouncier wickets with the ball not rising as expected. Up until then, Wood had troubled Iyer with his accurate lines, bowling at Iyer’s body and getting him into awkward positions. Iyer, who preferred staying on the back foot, however, was slowly getting the drift: Wood was bowling fast, but he was bowling short – eight of the nine balls bowled to him were short balls, which soon made him predictable.

In the 40th over, Wood sent down a brilliant short ball that kept climbing, with Iyer lucky to survive after playing it awkwardly, leaving both players in question along with the umpire smiling. The next ball, though, Iyer, expecting another short ball, was more cautious, pushing it away after an inside edge onto the thigh. He took two easy singles on his next two balls before England took Wood out of the attack.

Iyer got through the battle unscathed. Despite his previous struggles against the short ball, the element of surprise was missing from Wood. With Iyer hanging back repeatedly, Wood could have looked to unleash yorkers, brought him forward and mixed up the lengths, aiming for the top of the stumps as well. England also conceded easy singles to Rahul. Wood did not bowl a full over to Iyer even once and made no attempts to restrict the runs taken by Rahul on the last ball of the previous over by bringing in the field either. Wood bowled fours overs in the spell, sending down fewer than half of the balls to Iyer, the primary batter he was to target in the first place.

For his part, Iyer, who managed four edges on Wood’s first six balls, looked too preoccupied to prove his critics wrong, taking on the balls awkwardly, just about managing to survive. He was helped by the lack of a second pacer in the attack, but it was hardly pretty batting. Overall, Iyer took only three runs off Wood before he was dismissed, anti-climactically, by a spinner, against whom he averaged over 50 in Test cricket before the innings.

The Iyer vs Wood match-up was one of the many talking points in the first session and while the former survived, he would not be mighty pleased with how he approached the innings.

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