1st Test at Lord's

LANDMARK TEST TURNS INTO A NIGHTMARE FOR INDIA
By Ravichandran (a) Salavakkam Ravi

The first cricket test between India and England at Lord’s, London had been in the news for many reasons being the 2000th Test overall and the 100th Test betweenIndia and England.  This was also the 100^th test for Duncan Fletcher as Coach. With the expectation level and hype rising towards the possible century by Sachin Tendulkar to make it 100th International Century for him, the cricketing fraternity was totally engrossed to it

India won the toss and decided to field first. Though many teams would have batted first, Dhoni decided against it, expecting some freshness in the typical English wicket which traditionally would seam in the initial stages of the match.  Of course it did seam in the beginning.  But the patient knock of Andrew Strauss, though unimpressive, prevented his team from an early collapse.  Trott's well made 70 and Pietersen's unbeaten knock on 202 enabled England amass a challenging total of 474.  Losing Zaheer Khan early in the match due to a hamstring injury, Indian bowling attack looked very ordinary.  Harbhajan went wicketless and even Dhoni had to roll his arms for a while.  Praveen Kumar however took a five wicket haul to become the solitary bowler to make a mark.  India started the chase well with an impressive 49 from Abhinav Mukund.  Dravid's timely century, making amends for the ton he missed on his debut in 1996 at the same venue, was instrumental in avoiding follow on.  However India conceded a sizeable lead in the first innings.

Riding high on a lead of 188 England started its second innings.  England had a poor start and were in fact tottering at 62/5 at one stage.  But Dhoni's blunder in giving a break to Ishant Sharma helped England regroup and consolidate.  Matt Prior's breezy knock of 103* and Stuart Broad's useful knock of 74* helped Englandgarner 263/6, posing a challenging target of 458 to India.  Though India lost Mukund early, confident looking Dravid and Laxman prevented India from any further damage on Day 4.  But India lost Dravid right at the beginning of Day 5 which paved way to the famous Indian collapse.  Sachin and Gambhir failed in the second innings also.  Dhoni was unimpressive.  But Raina did well to stay at one end to witness the reckless and spineless batting at the other end.  India were bowled out for 261 conceding a victory to England by a huge margin of 196 runs. Kevin Pietersen was awarded the Man of the Match for his excellent double century in the 1^st innings.

A landmark test for India and England ended in a disaster for India.  If England win 2-0 or better than that in the series, India would lose its test crown.  India should forget that pressure and do well in the remaining tests to come back in the series. With Zaheer ruled out of the 2nd test, Gambhir not fully fit and Sehwag not recovering to get back into the team, the challenge seems much stiffer.  Having tasted the blood, England would also attack fiercely in the second test.