If you are a certain kind of film fan, you are likely to think highly of the film scene in which our hero is left with one pistol, one last bullet, a razor blade and two mathematically literate bad guys with evil grins, well oiled guns and a bullet glut. In a moment of inspiration, our man flicks the razor blade towards the two guys and then lets rip with the pistol. In a delicious twist on Solomon's judgment, the bullet is split neatly in two by the blade and each half makes an inspired, disabling dart for the two evil guys. They crash to the ground by half a bullet each, but mainly, it seems, by shock.
After a fresh beginning, the Lord's wicket had settled down into a mellow middle age. Yes, the odd ball would keep low, but the dimensions of misbehavior increasingly challenged the length of the blade, not its width. Neither side had the bowling to make much of this increasingly subtle assistance. It took a great deal of good fortune, mainly off the pitch, to get rid of some very good batsmen. But fortune is finite and both sides seemed to have used it up against each other's top orders, especially in the 2nd half of the match.
The 5th day began with the ball 47 overs old and England 214 runs away. They were 4 wickets down, but with 33 overs of the old ball available, they might have whittled that target down to about 110 with two well set batsmen at the wicket by the time MS Dhoni could take the new ball. With a left-hand-right-hand combination at the wicket, they might even have reduced this deficit to 90 by the 80th over. It would have looked a completely different game at 225/4 in 80 overs with Root and Ali well past 50 and Dhoni being forced to defend runs instead to chasing catches with the new ball.
It nearly worked. For one thing, India kept things steady in the morning session. They didn't get wickets, and apart from a couple of balls from Jadeja which hit Moeen's bat high and looped dangerously near Dhoni's leg trap, England looked untroubled. The first hour produced 35 runs in 16 overs. After 73 overs, England were 156/4. 51 runs in the first 27 overs on the day. They had also forced Dhoni to bring Ishant Sharma into the attack before the new ball became available.
Ishant's first over of the day, the 74th of England's innings, went for 14 runs. This included three boundaries off rank bad deliveries. The pay off had commenced. After keeping India out for 42 overs and 84 runs, Root and Moeen seemed primed to reap their reward and turn the game in England's favor.
After an over by Ravindra Jadeja which only provided more evidence of England's increasingly loud bats, Dhoni flicked his razor blade in the air. He took away all the slips and set a good old fashioned fast bowler's leg trap. There would be no more gentlemanly sparring with the width of England's bats.
It was costly. Ishant's first over went for 14. Then Moeen Ali got out having turned away from a short one. After lunch, Shami Ahmed took up the attack with a similar field. He bowled 6 consecutive short balls and conceded two boundaries. Ishant's first over after lunch went for 10 as well. And had one back-of-a-length delivery. In the 5 overs since Ishant returned, Joe Root made 23 in 13 balls. England made 37 runs - 23% of the 160 runs they needed to win.
Here, Dhoni made a subtle shift. A tactical retreat. Instead of attacking with his fast men with the old ball from both ends, he took Shami off, and brought Jadeja on in his place. Ishant continued. This was the Indian captain's mini-hedge. Some insurance against the possibility that he might need somebody to take the new ball should this effort purchase a couple of wickets by offering a few quick runs not work. He chose well. He kept his most likely salesman in play. Shami and Bhuvneshwar would use the new ball better than Ishant in any case, and neither had the high release of the 2 metre man from Delhi.
The purchase worked. It worked because England's batsmen seemed entirely without guile. It is one thing to play the hook with fielders on the boundary when you are well set and have gauged the pace of the pitch. It is quite another to do so when you are new at the wicket, no matter how good your form might be. From the moment he came in, Matt Prior seemed happy to pull on length. He wasn't particularly picky. He was like the occasional shopper of vegetables who simply piles tomatoes into his bag to reach the desired weight, unlike the seasoned shopper who chooses her vegetables carefully. Sooner or later, one rotten tomato was sure to slip through. It soon did for Matt Prior.
Ben Stokes has been in wretched batting form. He ignored one short one from Ishant, but couldn't resist the second. His miscue went only as far as mid-wicket.
By now, Root should have heard the alarm bells. After Stokes got out, he should have known that hooking every single short ball offered by Ishant Sharma on a 5th day wicket which wasn't playing as true as a 2nd or 3rd day pitch would end badly. He even got fair warning. He hooked one, miscued it, and the ball dribbled to mid-wicket. By now, there was a deep fine leg, a deep square leg, a deep mid-wicket, a mid-wicket, mid-on and a short-leg. Ishant was bowling to a 3-6 field. And England were hooking every ball.
Root hooked, met the ball well, but seemed to hit it the way a batsman would if there was no fielder in the deep. You know, the way a right-hander might loft against an off-spinner when there's no deep mid-wicket. It doesn't really matter if he hits it for six, all he needs is to ensure is that it is lofted it over the in-field. Why Root hooked, without really trying to hit the ball for six, with 3 men on the boundary, is something only he will be able to explain.
Or perhaps even he won't. England's approach to the short ball seemed to be like an addict's approach to buying crack. Even occasional shoppers learn to buy tomatoes better eventually.
When Root and Stokes fell in the 82nd over, it was all over.
Stuart Broad's batting against fast bowling in recent months has seemed like an harassment reel on a loop. Four years ago Broad made 169 in the company of Jonathan Trott against Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Asif and Wahab Riaz to rescue England from 102/7 at Lord's. All he seems to do these days is fend balls off his body. He must have walked in to face Dhoni's relentless assault on the middle of the pitch with a sense of foreboding. He swished and wafted in vain. His misery was mercifully short lived. A short one aimed at his ribs caught his glove when he fended at it as one might at a flying pile of poop. He walked.
Dhoni's desperate gamble had paid off. In hindsight, perhaps it wasn't such a big gamble after all. It is said that casinos make money not because the odds are stacked in favor of house (they are, but this is no secret), but because they know how to attract customers. Dhoni seemed to know something about England. When Ravindra Jadeja came out swinging against England, he seemed to disturb their stride very easily. England seemed eager to play the man instead of the ball and paid for it.
Think about it. England didn't ignore a single opportunity to hook. They seemed to play the shot in defiance of the field setting, not just despite it. It seemed an affront to them that India were making this play. And think about what it cost them. Had they been watchful and milked the bowling for an hour after tea, the target would have reduced by a further 30-35 runs, and India's bowlers would have tired. Furthermore, given that Dhoni had used his fast men in the lead up to the 80th over, they might have gotten a lot more to hit against far more conventional fields. Dhoni didn't have a 2nd fast man to keep up the line up of attack that Ishant was delivering.
Like the success of the hero with the gun and the razor, India's Test win at Lord's was less an uplifting epic fable of excellence and courage, and more an ersatz heist. The plot's success rested on the vanity and gullibility of its victims rather than on any mind-bending, gasp inducing heroics by the good guys.
Some Test wins leave you with a sense of wonderment at the epic scale and intricacy of the argument you have just witnessed. This Indian Test win at Lord's was more like a B-movie, where the lines are dumbed down to match the ability of the actors and the plot to the perceived ability of the audience. They can be morbidly fascinating if you are a certain kind of cricket fan. But epics they are not.