The Indian team showed fleeting glimpses of the greatness but England was overall the better team in the first test match of the series. There was a lot of hype surrounding this test match considering this is the 2000th test match ever and Sachin was expected to score the magical 100th Century at thie grand venue. Another interesting stat that I did not know was that between Dravid, Sachin and Laxman; they had scored 99 test centuries before this match. So we were all looking forward to a great absorbing duel.
Instead, India went on the backfoot almost immediately after winning the toss. Zaheer bowled with some fire and guile and managed to consume couple of top order wickets. Thereafter he pulled his hamstring and went out of the game (and the next one). That reduced the bowling options considerably for MSD, although Pravin Kumar admirably rose to the occasion. Ishanth and Bhajji were off colour and did not adjust well. At one stage, MSD gave the keeper’s gloves to Dravid and bowled a few overs, possibly to cut the over rate. Kevin Pietersen batted beautifully to score a double hundred and put India under a lot of pressure with some great support from Trott. India, chasing 474, barely managed to avoid follow on. Dravid scored a good solid 100 and proved his value as a great test match batsman.
In the second innings, India seemed to have created an opening for themselves when they had England down at 5-62 and 6-102. But then Prior came and played a typical No. 7 wicket-keeper knock to put the game beyond the Indians. To top it all, Gautam Gambhir got hit and was not able to bat in the second innings. The Indian team resembled a army infirmary with a few players nursing some injury. The reduced and modified batting line up could not stop the Englishmen from completing a well earned victory. Hats off to Dravid again who came to open the batting in the second innings.
The positives for England, were KP and Trott’s batting. The bowling of Anderson and Broad. For the Indians, the only shining line was the batting of Dravid and some good spells from PK. Bhajji needs to start contributing as a bowler and the rest of the batting unit needs to come to the party to make a statement. Otherwise the number one spot is at risk.
Nasser Hussain made a comment in his post match analysis that the Indian team does not value the Number one ranking very much and I tend to agree with me. I did not see any heroics from the batters to save the test match. He also mentioned that the IPL takes a lot out of the players and we are seeing some after effects of that in the current series.
Indian team needs to go back to the drawing board and look at the limited options they have and come back to fight this out.
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