England’s incredible win against India was brought about by embracing the “uncomfortable” conditions without moaning, as revealed by pacer Ollie Robinson who gave an insight into his team’s preparations for the tour in his column for Wisden.com before the series.
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England prepared for their series against India with a 10-day preparatory camp in Abu Dhabi that Robinson described as “short and sharp”. They arrived in Hyderabad four days before the start of the first Test match, leading to question marks over whether they had adequate time to acclimate to the conditions.
All doubts were laid to rest after they recorded a memorable win in the first Test, coming from a 190-run deficit to defeat India by 28 runs. On a wicket that kept getting slower, debutant Tom Hartley put aside his dismal performance from the first innings with a seven-wicket haul after Ollie Pope tackled the Indian spinners effectively, scoring 196.
R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja both conceded over 100 runs in the second innings for the first time in a home Test match.
Ahead of the Test, Ollie Robinson had given an insight into the preparations of the England batters on raked pitches in Abu Dhabi and how the visitors were better prepared to take on the conditions this time as compared to 2021 when they lost 3-1.
“We’re embracing conditions more than we did last time. In Abu Dhabi, we got the groundsman to rake two pitches and put sawdust down so they were ragging square from ball one. Tom and Bash were using brand new balls, something that Ashwin does sometimes. The lads were playing sweeps – even getting hit in the face sometimes – just playing shots that they would normally play on these raggers. There was no moaning, there were no excuses if they got out.
“It was just – ‘Next ball, crack on. How am I going to be better the next time?’ And that’s something that I definitely have noticed under Ben and Baz, the mindset is so different. We didn’t practice on turning wickets before the 2021 India tour. We didn’t practice on the wickets that we were going to face. We just had nice, comfortable practice. This time, it’s been more uncomfortable, more honest practice. That’s only going to bode well for us in this series I think.”
Since Brendon McCullum came on as coach of the England team in June 2022, they have won 14 out of 19 Tests and are yet to drop a series.
