Amid its beauty and statistics, it is still easy to forget cricket's shameless brutality

PAUL EDWARDS AT LORD'S: Gaps appeared in the stands as spectators with more cash than sense opted for an early getaway; the players’ shadows grew sharp against the green; “Last Bat: Hameed 0”

Lord's (second day of five): India 364, England 119-3 - England trail by 245 runs with seven wickets remaining

Scorecard

Amid the beauty and the analysis, the athleticism and the statistics, it is still easy to forget cricket’s shameless brutality. Sometimes the savagery is plain: a hard ball travelling at 90mph and hitting a man on the head brooks no dispute. On many other occasions, however, the game’s viciousness is revealed more subtly: by one team sapping their opponents’ spirit and emptying their well of resistance.

And Test matches, specifically a five-match series, offer ideal settings for such ungentle work. India were 276 for 3 when play began at Lord’s this morning. This was a day on which they had a chance to break England; to turn the Home of Cricket into an amphitheatre; to play the type of trampling cricket that defines a summer.

That the tourists could not do so was explained partly by the bowling of James Anderson, who completed a five-wicket haul for the 31st time in his Test career as India lost their last seven wickets for 86 runs.

Yet this day was also made precious by the batting of Joe Root, who ended the evening session 48 not out having overtaken Graham Gooch to become his country’s second highest run-scorer after Alastair Cook. It all made for a richly-textured three sessions, at the conclusion of which England still trailed India by 245 runs. And yes, there was cruelty, too. Haven’t you heard about Hameed?

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The first five minutes of the morning had offered England hope beyond their fondest reverie. Ollie Robinson’s second ball was little more than an arthritic loosener but KL Rahul drove it obligingly to Dom Sibley at cover and the crowd stood to applaud a century most of them had never seen. James Anderson’s first delivery of the day’s second over was angled in to Ajinkya Rahane before leaving the batsman, who edged it straight to Root at slip.

So Rishabh Pant joined Ravi Jadeja far sooner than either had thought likely and England had opportunities to make further inroads. But ninety curious minutes would pass before the next wicket fell. Many commentators make much of Pant’s willingness to gallivant down the pitch and thrash the ball very hard but very few note the orthodoxy and caution that otherwise characterise his batting in red-ball cricket, thus rendering his attacking shots all the more bizarre and unpredictable.

^{James Anderson took his seventh five-wicket haul in Tests at Lord's}

By the time he under-edged a catch to Jos Buttler off Mark Wood his 37 runs off 58 balls had included five boundaries. The bald statistics would not attract much comment if they belonged to an Ollie Pope innings, but Pant’s wicket probably brought a sigh of relief from Root – and a sigh of regret from some in the crowd. Five minutes later the joy was undivided when Mohammed Shami chipped his second ball from Moeen Ali straight to Burns at midwicket and England were able to look back on a fine morning’s work in which they had taken four wickets for the addition of 70 runs.

In the first hour of the afternoon session Root’s men were given eight opportunities to take wickets and managed to take three of them. There were two dropped chances, neither of them easy and three attempted run outs with Jonny Bairstow’s chuck from around six yards being the most obvious miss. Fortunately, however, Root can trust Anderson to eschew such errors and must already be fearing the time when he can no longer do so.

This afternoon England’s best bowler trapped Ishant Sharma leg before, had Jasprit Bumrah caught behind and then took a catch off the flailing Ravi Jadeja to give Wood his second wicket. Anderson finished with 5 for 64 and India were bowled out for 364, which was around 200 runs fewer than some pessimists predicted they might get. All the home batsmen needed to do now was bat properly…

Captain Root is at his best when he's in the middle, away from the onerous commitments of an England skipper

For an hour before tea Burns and Sibley did precisely that. There was the odd false shot but the pair dealt capably with the new ball attack of Ishant Sharma and Bumrah, scoring 23 runs in 14 calming overs. It turned out to be nothing but a brief respite, for this looks to be a summer in which England’s batting leads to questions in the House.

Siraj’s second ball after tea was on leg stump, if not slightly outside that line, and Sibley, much as he did in the first innings at Trent Bridge, clipped it to short midwicket. It was the sort of shot that gets a man dropped and it brought Haseeb Hameed out to bat in a Test match less than two years after he had been released by Lancashire.

We will probably never know what was going through Hameed’s mind as he walked out to play his first Test innings in England and his first since he announced himself in India nearly five years ago. One doubts there was nothing in his head, though maybe nothing but a cool focus on the ball about to be bowled would have been ideal. As it was, Siraj’s first ball to Hameed was full and straight and Hameed missed it.

^{KL Rahul was dismissed without adding to his overnight hundred}

There was nothing complex about the matter; any complexity may well have lain inside the mind of a 22-year-old batsman presented with an opportunity he might have doubted would ever come. Hameed’s feet seemed set in plaster and he played both late and across the wrong line. Three balls after tea England were 23 for 2. It was the fifteenth time in 19 Test match innings this year that England had lost their second wicket before they had fifty runs on the board.

The skipper probably knows these bleak statistics very well for such reverses have brought him to the wicket. Root, though, could calm a punch-up in a Boston bar at the moment. While the hubbub in the Harris Garden grew and folk gathered for what is usually an annual reunion at the Nursery End England’s captain helped Burns add 85 for the third wicket. At one stage the pair stroked five boundaries in seven balls, none of them streaky, off Siraj and Sharma.

Gaps appeared in the stands as spectators with more cash than sense opted for an early getaway; the players’ shadows grew sharp against the green; “Last Bat: Hameed 0” shone out brightly on the scoreboard. Then Shami arrowed one back to Burns, who was leg before for 49. It was a late triumph for India but nothing like the disintegration they may have envisaged some eight hours earlier. Root is still there, and the Saturday of the Lord’s Test beckons.

Subscribe to The Cricketer for exclusive content every day: The inside track on England's Test tour with George Dobell in Pakistan, award-winning analysis, breaking news and interviews and the only place for in-depth county coverage all year round. Plus: An ad-free app experience at your fingertips. Subscribe to thecricketer.com today for just £1.