Mental disintegration was the phrase coined by Steve Waugh re: getting into the batsman’s mind via sledging. But, as new writer Ned Vessey, explores, nothing can utterly confound batsmen like the spinning ball on a minefield …

Test cricket is a cruel beast. It can leave the players bruised and battered, broken-boned. It drains, and leaves the body dehydrated. It makes muscles sore and strained. It is relentless and punishing on those who take part.

Its greatest cruelty, however, is what it does to the mind.

The frankly bizarre third Test has demonstrated that. A combination of high-class Spin Bowling, a questionable pitch and a lacquered pink Ball saw a succession of batsman put through the mental wringer in just under two days play.

This kind of mental bamboozlement is unique to spin bowling. Unlike facing pace, which largely leaves responses down to infinitesimally slim reactions, facing spin bowling offers an extra fraction of time to respond.

In this extra space, and when confronted with bowlers in the calibre of Ravi Ashwin and Axar Patel, Batsmen are able to get themselves in a terrible tangle. Should they go forwards or back? Should they play for spin? Should they get their front pad out of line with the stumps? Should they use their feet? Should they sweep? Should they leave it?

All these decisions have to be made very briefly. They not only demonstrate just how tough Test cricket can be, but they also offer a clue as to why so many batsmen struggled in this Test.

As a succession of batsmen began to struggle on a pitch that turned early, yet still saw plenty of deliveries go straight on, those questions became more and more jumbled in their minds. Suddenly, the pitch was even tougher than it was in reality, Ashwin and Axar even more threatening than they actually were.

Rather than just taking each ball as it came, England’s batsmen began to envision what ball they were going to get before it was delivered. Cue Jonny Bairstow playing for turn that didn’t come, leaving a large gap between bat and pad. Cue Dom Sibley playing an ugly and uncharacteristic hack that resulted in a feathery edge.

That 21 out of the 30 batsmen to fall in the match were out playing for spin that never came demonstrates just how much the pitch and the game got into the heads of the batsmen’s heads. That Joe Root took 5-8 is telling. The England skipper bowled extremely well, but he was also aided by the mental tangle of the Indian batsmen.

Only in the fourth innings, when England’s heads were down and the pressure was off India, did the batsmen look comfortable. It shows just how much the developing game situation affected the minds of the batsmen, and how the danger of the pitch and the ball became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I am not denying that the pitch was tough, nor that all the spinners in the game bowled extremely well. However, with every ball that skidded on, and every one that turned, the batsmen became increasingly unsure what to play for, and ended up playing for neither. The atmosphere became ever more frantic and manic, fed by the panic and confusion of the players.

India may have emerged the ultimate victors, but the cruelty of Test cricket on the mind, and the way in which the mental state of the players can affect the outcome of a match is perhaps the most significant point that we can take away from one of the strangest Tests in some time.

Ned Vessey

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