After the Essex batsmen decided to continue batting in the second session of the final day, continuing to keep the Indians on the field, making their bowlers toil in the heat, the warm-up match was being played at a snail’s pace. Ishant Sharma, Shardul Thakur and Co ran in to bowl, but there was no indication that India were looking to get the last two Essex wickets to force the issue and have a bat again. Because they *had* to bat again. Shikhar Dhawan couldn’t possibly end the warm-up match having just faced one ball. Cheteshwar Pujara couldn’t possibly leave Chelmsford having just faced seven balls for a solitary run.

The declaration came. Dhawan and Pujara would, after all, get another chance. And they would – to varying degrees – blow it again.

Clueless Dhawan

Virat Kohli likes his left-right combination at the top. He prefers one of his openers to be aggressive, and have the ability to take the game away from the opposition. On paper, Dhawan is that man for him. On a pitch that offers movement to the opponent’s new ball bowlers, Dhawan falters invariably. It was once again the case in the second innings. And Dhawan finished the warm-up match with a grand total of zero runs scored from four balls faced.

Now, this wasn’t typical English conditions. This wasn’t even as tough as the first morning, when the grass was greener on the pitch than it was on the outfield. The sun was out in Chelmsford, the pitch was dry, with puffs of dust coming up every time the bowler landed on the crease. This wasn’t even Essex’s first-choice bowling attack. There was a hint of movement with the new ball and that’s about it. And even that proved too much to handle for Dhawan, who was squarely beaten by the first two balls he faced – one moving away from short of good length, one moving into him from a fuller length. And off the third ball, he had his stumps rattled.

It’s not so much the fact that Dhawan didn’t score a run in the only warm-up match, but the manner in which he has faced up to the new ball bowlers that will concern the Indian think-tank. The Delhi opener has, to put it mildly, looked clueless.

As we have observed on these pages before, Dhawan enjoys a terrific white-ball record in England. Even on the current tour, he looked in good touch during the limted-overs games. But a change of colour has brought about a drastic change of fortunes. Surely he cannot be the first-choice opener for the first Test in Birmingham now?

Well...

Pujara’s struggles

Despite Dhawan’s aforementioned difficulties, the door is not completely shut on him and part of the reason for that is Cheteshwar Pujara. Sure, unlike Dhawan, he didn’t seem clueless in the middle during his 35-ball 23 but throwing his wicket away to a full ball on the pads, when he had the chance to just bat through the afternoon and stay unbeaten, summed up his English summer.

As a continuation of the torrid time he has had in England, playing for Yorkshire, Pujara’s struggles continued against Essex. In 12 first class innings during the county season, Pujara made 241 runs at an average of 14.33. In a recent interview, he spoke about the challenges of playing in the early English summer where there is plenty of assistance for the seamers, and the impact of the travel between India and England on his physical fitness in reference to his mediocre returns for Yorkshire. He also spoke about how he doesn’t have to prove his credentials to anyone but himself.

But the fact remains, Pujara’s form is now a genuine concern for the Indian team management.

(Assumption: At this point, we’d like to think Rahul has done enough to ensure he plays the first Test... but you never know with Kohli, do you?)

It comes down, not just to the lack of runs, but the conditions India are likely to encounter at Edgbaston. With all the talk about a dry English summer, if Kohli sees the pitch for the first Test and thinks it doesn’t offer a great deal of threat from the likes of James Anderson and Stuart Broad, he might still be tempted to go with Dhawan at the top and KL Rahul at No 3, because the former is a much bigger threat in sub-continent like conditions. Should the pitch be green, Pujara would offer, at the very least, a solidity to the top order that Dhawan wouldn’t. Despite his struggle for runs during this English summer, he might have done enough to keep his place at No 3, just by virtue of being out there in the middle longer, facing the red ball.

Conditions apply

It’s not like Pujara has great numbers in seaming conditions, either. He averages 27.31 in 20 matches played outside the subcontinent. He has scored just four fifties and one century in 35 innings. When he scored that fighting half century against South Africa on that spiteful Johannesburg pitch in January this year, it was his first 50-plus score in four years outside Asia. But here’s the deal: he did score on that spiteful Johannesburg pitch. As he has done on seaming pitches in Kolkata and Sri Lanka, when the rest of his teammates struggled.

In the past, Pujara would have had many more things going for him and the idea of not having him in the team for a series-opener in England would have been unthinkable. Even the trigger-happy Kohli-Shastri duo could not have imagined such a situation. But by virtue of his struggles for Yorkshire and not making the most of the warm-up game, Pujara finds himself in that very scenario.

Running has never been his strong point, and in the race for a spot in the top order at Edgbaston, he is just about keeping his nose in the front, ahead of Dhawan.