Former skipper Nasser Hussain weighed in over England’s performance in the second Test against India at Chepauk after the visitors suffered a heavy 317-run defeat on Tuesday (February 16) to leave the four-match series levelled at 1-1.
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According to Hussain, inconsistency in spin department is the biggest issue for England and they must rectify it in order to get positive results in the remaining two Tests.
"England need to dust themselves off, not moan about the pitch, the toss, DRS, umpires or whatever and just try and rectify and improve in the areas they were found short — and knowing this side, I think that is exactly what they will do," Hussain wrote in his column for 'Sky Sports'.
"Even though they continue to get wickets, the biggest issue is the consistency in the spin department. It is not just this Test match, if you look back at Sri Lanka, Jack Leach and Dom Bess got wickets but Bess, in particular, was very inconsistent with his length," he added.
Nasser Hussain feels Indian spinners outshone their England counterparts and even experienced Moeen Ali was lacking control of his deliveries.
"Ali got eight wickets (in 2nd Test) and he bowled some real beauties, like the one to bowl Virat Kohli in first innings and got him out twice in the game — but Mo himself will admit that in first innings, he didn't quite have the control and 4-128 is not what you're looking for on such a minefield for the spinners.
"If you compare that to how India's two spinners bowled and the control of Ravichandran Ashwin, they didn't do anything magical, they just jammed it in there ball after ball," said the 51-year-old cricketer-turned-commentator.
"If you're asking me the main reason why England lost the Test match, I would say if you look at India's main two spinners — Ashwin and Axar Patel — they were more consistent than the England spinners."
Although Hussain was not too critical of England's batting, he asked Joe Root and company to not just defend but look to score runs.
"I can't be overly critical of England's batting. They can learn though; India had a batsman in Rohit Sharma who scored nearly 200 runs and bowling all-rounder Ashwin got a second-innings hundred on it so it was not impossible.
"England have got to look at that and ask what Rohit and Ashwin did so well to try and learn and improve."
Hussain expects one of the pitches in the last two Tests to be a rank turner and wants England batsmen to adjust accordingly.
"... this was a chastening defeat ... but that's what the challenge is playing away from home, the same way as it is when you go to Australia and we used to have to cope with the bounce at Perth.
"Or when players come to England and have to cope with the moving Dukes ball — it is part of being an all-round cricketer and occasionally you get pitches like that," said the former captain.
(With PTI inputs)
