Triumph! - Day Five at Lord's

I forgot to mention it yesterday, but there was a point during the Broad/Prior partnership that the woman next to me in the pavilion (something that, in itself, would have had the members muttering into their gin and tonics not so long ago) described the day’s play as ‘going up and down like a whore’s drawers’.  But I digress.

There was a time, not so long ago, when this game would have petered out to a draw, especially given that this was a decent fifth day pitch and India’s batting line-up. However, England are made of sterner stuff than was once the case and they dripped away, not allowing missed chances or poor umpiring decisions to shake them from their task, and they duly completed a deserved victory with time to spare.

Lord’s was packed, queues having snaked around the ground since the small hours of the morning, and those who had taken advantage of the ticket prices were richly rewarded. Only those who came in hope of a hundredth hundred from Tendulkar would have left feeling remotely short changed.

Dravid and Laxman started solidly against a seam attack that carried on where it had left off the night before, before Dravid, uncharacteristically, hung his bat out at a delivery from Anderson and edged through to Prior. Laxman was joined by Gambhir, still in pain from his elbow injury but able to contribute to the cause.

These two added thirty-seven, Laxman going past his fifty before uncharacteristically dragging a long hop to Ian Bell at midwicket. Gambhir went not long after, leg before to the persevering Graeme Swann, and England scented victory.

Tendulkar and Raina dug in, adding a somewhat tortuous thirty in sixteen overs. Tendulkar, who was clearly still struggling following his virus, played a bizarre innings, allowing the England bowlers to dictate to him and at one point going scoreless for forty deliveries. He had a fair amount of luck as well, being palpably leg before (oh for the DRS) and then dropped by Strauss, who was having a thin time of it at slip. The drop turned out not to be costly, however, as Anderson snared him, plumb in front, two balls later.

It was left to Suresh Raina, who hadn’t scored in the first innings, to hold the fort, and he performed admirably, albeit also with a certain amount of good fortune and with a not out that had one pining for the DRS, but at the other end Dhoni departed to a waft outside off stump and Harbhajan showed as little stomach for the fight as he had in the first innings. The end came quickly, Kumar failing to provide the same entertainment that he had in the first innings, Raina was caught behind and Ishant was plumb, giving England victory by the whopping margin of 196 runs.

India had some ill fortune, certainly, but they would be unwise to dwell on it for too long, for it doesn’t alter the fact that their batting was limp in each innings (with the honourable exceptions of Dravid in the first innings and Raina in the second) and had England not been uncharacteristically butter fingered and the umpires slightly more eagle-eyed it could have been a wider margin. Certainly nothing could be done about Tendulkar’s illness, although given his record at Lord’s it might not have made much difference, and Gambhir was unfortunate to be struck by Prior’s slog sweep, but Zaheer’s failure to last the course wasn’t, in truth, a great surprise given his physical condition. India looked underprepared, unfit and indolent for much of the game. Only while Ishant was bowling his inspired spell on Sunday morning did the fielding raise itself from its torpor and that didn’t last, with the aggressive running of Prior and Broad rendering it shambolic. They will have to raise their game considerably at Trent Bridge, but England will also be looking to improve. Bring it on.

The Joy of Test Cricket - Day Four at Lord's

I’ve been watching test cricket at Lord’s for the best part of thirty years. In that time there have been plenty of ‘I was there’ moments, from Sunil Gavaskar’s hundred in the Bicentenary Test to Trott and Broad’s partnership against Pakistan last year via Graham Gooch’s triple century. I’ve even seen Mark Butcher and Anthony McGrath share seven wickets in a test innings. Today’s play, though, was up there with the best that I’ve seen. There was some superb bowling, a rousing fight back and the opportunity to watch two of the greatest batsmen of the last ten years dogging it out against some superb seam bowling. It was marvellous.

Before play, the talk had been of when England would declare and what sort of target they would leave. By the end of the England innings this was still a matter for speculation, but the route that they had taken was somewhat circuitous and made for some enthralling cricket.

England started the morning brightly, Strauss looking in good touch as he clipped a couple of boundaries to settle the nerves. Cook finally got off the mark and looked unperturbed by his long scoreless spell before Kumar produced a beauty to have him caught behind, bringing in Jonathan Trott against an attack that was functioning markedly better than it had in the first innings. Ishant’s first spell was a marked step up from his travails on the first couple of days, bowling at a decent pace to a much tighter off stump line and causing some problems without managing to make the breakthrough.

England moved fairly serenely to 54-1 as Lord’s dozed gently in the sunshine. Harbhajan looked ineffective from the Nursery End, although the slope didn’t help his spin, and Kumar, the wicked delivery to Cook aside, looked less effective than he had in the first innings. All this was about to change, however.

At the end of Kumar’s spell Dhoni, juggling his rather thin bowling resources, switched Harbhajan to the more helpful Pavilion End and brought Ishant, after only a short rest, back at the Nursery End, a move that was to reap considerable rewards. First, Harbhajan trapeed Strauss leg before, a decision that the England captain looked unhappy with but which was later vindicated by Hawkeye. Then Ishant produced a spell that will last long in the memories of those who saw it. Pietersen was dismissed by a beauty, an effort ball that bounced appreciably more than its predecessors and took the glove as Pietersen took evasive action. Bell then followed, edging behind as Ishant made Geoffrey Boycott purr with his use of the corridor of uncertainty. When Trott was bowled playing uncharacteristically loosely at a ball that jagged back improbably up the hill England were 62-5 and India were scenting a chance of victory.

England collapses have been a feature of the last three Lord’s tests. Against Pakistan last year they were 102-7 before the extraordinary Trott and Broad partnership and against Sri Lanka they were 22-3 before recovering to make well over 400, so they did not panic. Morgan and Prior saw them through to lunch, by which time Ishant had 3-15 from thirteen overs.

After lunch, Dhoni gave Ishant a rest and brought on Kumar from the Nursery End, a move which was understandable given Ishant’s exertions in the morning but which gave the England batsmen some respite. Morgan and Prior started to rebuild, but the return of Ishant saw Morgan spoon the ball to midwicket where Gambhir took a fine catch low to the ground.  At 107-6 India were right back in the game.

Stuart Broad’s first scoring shot was an extremely tight single to mid-on, and this set the tone for what was to come. Prior and Broad ran like demons, exploiting unathletic Indian fielding, that verged on the shambolic. As the partnership built, both started to open out, Prior indulging in some characteristic offside shoots and Broad thumping the ball down the ground off the front foot and pulling with relish.

Both had moments of good fortune, Prior twice lobbing the ball into open spaces and Broad edging a huge drive between Dhoni and Dravid, neither of whom moved. Then they really put their foot down, Prior moving into the nineties with a sweetly timed six into the Mound Stand and Broad playing a shot a ball. India’s plight was rather summed up when Prior was on 99: Dhoni brought the field up to deny Broad a single, whereupon he took ten from the first three balls of the over and then took a single anyway, allowing Prior to complete his hundred. The declaration followed immediately, a state of affairs that would have been impossible to imagine at lunch.

Gambhir had taken a shuddering blow to the elbow fielding at short leg, so Dravid opened with Mukund. Mukund got off to a flying start, taking boundaries in the first two overs, but England soon got the radar right and the Indian batsmen were given a torrid time. Mukund departed, playing on to Broad for the second time in the match, but Dravid and Laxman showed their class, first by surviving as the ball whistled past the edges of their bats and then starting to thrive as the day drew to a close. An Indian win tomorrow looks close to impossible, but if these two can bat for a long time in the morning then a draw could yet be theirs.

The Broad Wall of India - Day Three at Lord's

It was meant to be all about Sachin, but in the end it was Rahul Dravid who found his name on the honours board with a typically gutsy innings. Although he benefited from Graeme Swann spilling an awkward but very catchable chance at second slip, no-one could have begrudged him his hundred on a day when the much vaunted Indian batting line-up struggled against a disciplined and, occasionally, inspired England attack.

For England, all eyes were on Stuart Broad. Many people, including me, would have picked Tim Bresnan over him for this match and his first ball duck on Friday hardly inspired confidence, but with the ball he was back to his best, pitching it up and swinging it, rather as he did at the Oval a couple of years ago. Gambhir had no answer to a big in swinger and Mukund dragged on a rare wide ball to bring Tendulkar to the crease.

There were flickers of genius, most notably a gorgeous back foot punch through the off side, but there were also some plays and misses as the great man settled down to his task and, in truth, it was no great surprise when he edged to slip to continue his dismal run of scores in tests at Lord’s.

It was a surprise, however, when England dropped two catches in an over. Strauss’s was one that he would catch 99 times out of 100, but today was not his day. Swann’s was harder, but he has caught superbly over the last couple of years and I suspect that both Stuart Broad and Rahul Dravid were surprised to see it grassed, although  their other emotions may have been rather different.

The drop of Laxman proved not to be too costly as he wafted Tremlett to Trott at deep backward square, and Raina’s stay was brief. Dhoni hung around, restraining his natural instincts to help Dravid to add fifty, but once he had departed the only resistance came from an entertaining cameo from Praveen Kumar that took India past the follow-on total. England had a few tricky overs to survive to the end of play, but did so without any great alarms and will resume tomorrow with all ten wickets standing.

The day, though, was all about Rahul Dravid’s maiden Lord’s century, fifteen years after his 95 on debut, and Stuart Broad’s dazzling return to form. Tomorrow promises to be another fabulous day – bring it on.

The Pietersen Show - Day Two at Lord's

Before today only two England batsmen, Wally Hammond and Len Hutton, had made more than two test double centuries, with seven and four respectively. Today the much maligned Kevin Pietersen added his name to that list with his third, and second in eight tests.

Watching Pietersen bat on Thursday one would have got good odds on his achieving such a remarkable landmark today, but he blossomed as the innings progressed, ending in flurry of boundaries, one of which was six that may have significantly reduced the life expectancy of a number of members who were in the vicinity when it landed. It’s true that he had a little luck: he was, correctly, reprieved by hot spot when MS Dhoni thought that he had snared his first test wicket, but before that he survived what was probably a clean catch by Rahul Dravid. It is ironic that the ICC has given way to the highly qualified ballistics experts at the BCCI on the use of Hawkeye but persist in using the cameras for low catches but it has been proven time and again not to be accurate.

Trott went reasonably early on having added just twelve to his overnight score, leg before to the persevering Kumar. Bell then batted nicely and England looked comfortable until he, rather surprisingly, edged Kumar to Dhoni. With Morgan falling to a superb ball later in the same over, although there was some doubt as to whether he had actually nicked it, there was a real risk that England might squander their good start, especially with Kumar swinging the ball extravagantly at times.

Anyone reaching that rather pessimistic conclusion, however, would have reckoned without Matt Prior. Over the last year or so his batting has been superb and here he looked in good order straightaway, taking the pressure off Pietersen and upping the tempo as the Indian bowlers understandably tired.  Then after tea they went bananas.

Between tea and the declaration, Kevin Pietersen faced 81 balls and scored 87 runs, with his last 50 coming from just 25 balls. At the other end, Matt Prior added 51 from 57 and, after Broad’s first baller had given Kumar a deserved five wicket haul, Swann joined in the fun with some lusty blows. The fact that he should have been given out leg before and would have been but for the hare-brained decision not to use ball tracking technology simply added to the fun.

Pietersen reached his double century in style, plundering sixteen from the first four balls of Raina’s over before Strauss, slightly surprisingly, declared. The Indians will have been glad to get off the field – they undoubtedly suffered a major setback when Zaheer was hurt but the rest of the bowling, with the honourable exception of Kumar, was pretty moderate, and the fielding became very ragged as England accelerated in the afternoon. Duncan Fletcher has work to do.

Enlgand would have hoped for a breakthrough in the overs that were left in the day but Mukund and Gambhir held firm. Another fascinating day’s cricket has set up an intriguing weekend.

Trotting Along - Day One at Lord's

First days of test matches are rarely conclusive, particularly when truncated by rain, but this was, nonetheless, a fascinating opening to what promises to be a fascinating series. Geoffrey Boycott is fond of telling us that teams can’t win test matches on the first day but that they can lose them (which makes fans of logic wonder what the other team are doing), but England will be happier with their day’s endeavours.

This was a good toss to win, under heavy cloud and with a little drizzle in the air, and MS Dhoni had no hesitation in putting England in. Zaheer must have been purring as he marked his run up and he proceeded to bowl beautifully, moving the ball at a decent pace and discomfiting all of the England batsmen.

Cook’s astonishing run had to come to an end at some point and he was palpably leg before to a beautiful delivery from Zaheer. Strauss, in the meantime, looked in better touch than he had against Sri Lanka, presumably buoyed by his hundred guesting for Somerset. He will not look on his dismissal with any great joy, however, for, on a day when only certain scoring opportunities should have been considered, Zaheer’s bouncer was too wide of off stump for the hook shot to be viable and he duly perished.

In Jonathan Trott, England had the perfect man for the situation. In similar conditions against Pakistan last year he alone had stood firm and he brought the same qualities to bear in this innings, defending resolutely, leaving judiciously and punishing the bad ball. At the other end, Kevin Pietersen looked rather less composed, at times seemingly at odds with both his body and his game, but he too was resolute in reining in his more swashbuckling instincts and will come back in what promise to be more favourable conditions in the morning.

They did have one significant slice of good fortune, however, when Zaheer pulled up with what looked like a hamstring injury. If he is unable to bowl again in the match then it will be a massive blow to India, for although Kumar bowled nicely, Ishant looked out of sorts and Harbhajan is the shadow of the bowler that he once was. A fascinating day’s play is in prospect.

Botham

Last night, BBC2 showed an hour long documentary on Ian Botham, presumably to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the seminal 1981 Ashes series. While it was great to see a free to air broadcaster acknowledging that cricket exists it was an opportunity wasted, failing to add anything of interest to the story of Sir Ian (as Nasser Hussain insists on calling him) and omitting much of the detail that would have added flesh to the rather over-familiar bones.

All of the usual material was here: his heroic innings against Hampshire in 1974, five wickets on test debut, the close relationship with Mike Brearley, the disastrous captaincy, Headingley, drugs etc. What was missing was any sort of insightful analysis, which was hardly surprising when the main interviewees, John Major, Elton John, Stephen Fry and Mick Jagger, seemed to be indulging in a private competition to reveal which one of them knows the least about cricket.

Take the issue of the captaincy. I would be the first to agree that Botham was a terrible captain, but it is also true that he was a pretty unlucky one. Had David Gower held an awkward catch at midwicket in the first test of the rain ruined 1980 series then England might well have achieved an unlikely series win over the West Indies, much as New Zealand had managed the preceding winter.  The tour of the Caribbean that followed was blighted by the Jackman Affair, which was skated over, and the death of Ken Barrington, which wasn’t mentioned at all. In amongst the discussion of the reception that Botham was given by the MCC members (or Lord’s members if you’re Sir Elton) on completing his pair (or double duck to Sir Elton) in 1981, no mention was made of his part in the shambles of the Saturday of the Centenary Test the year before. Context is all.

Things got worse when they came to 1981, for there was next to no acknowledgement that any other Englishmen, save for Bob Willis and Mike Brearley, were playing. Fair enough, it’s a Botham documentary, but not to mention Graham Dilley’s innings at Headingley at all was crass. Stephen Fry’s assertion that Brearley didn’t give Bob Willis the new ball in the second innings to make him angry was also risible: Brearley says quite clearly in ‘Phoenix from the Ashes’ that he gave Graham Dilley the new ball because he though that he would be confident after his innings. The really significant decision in that innings, to give Willis a go down the hill and for him not to worry about his no ball problem, was completely ignored.

The same was true of Edgbaston. The 5-1 that Botham took was startling, but it is even more remarkable when you consider that he was reluctant to bowl and had been brought on with the instruction of ‘keep it tight for Embers’. Again, there was no mention of this.

The final omission, though, was, in some ways, the most startling. In amongst the discussion of drugs and tabloid scandals there was no mention at all of Tim Hudson and his pernicious influence. The decline and fall of Ian Botham can be attributed to a whole range of factors - his back injury, the retirement of Mike Brearley, his reluctance to practice etc. – but Hudson would have to feature prominently in that list. One wonders at the reasons for his airbrushing from history.

The final segment was, however, heart warming. Ian Botham’s contribution to leukaemia has been extraordinary and to hear about the impact of the money that he has raised from some of those directly affected was probably the best bit of the programme. It’s just a shame that the bit about cricket was so poorly thought through and, ultimately, failed to do justice to a childhood hero.

Bring it on

In a little under twenty-four hours, weather permitting, the captains will toss and the eagerly anticipated England v India series will be underway. But what will happen?

England will look to start well and may well see Lord’s as their most likely victory of the summer. Lord’s has never been a happy hunting ground for India, a solitary test victory in 1986 and the 1983 World Cup final aside, and the evidence of their warm-up game is that they are a little undercooked. They played some decent, if unambitious, cricket in the Caribbean, but they will find conditions, not to mention the opposition, rather different in England and they would have benefited from more than one game to acclimatise, especially given how poorly they performed in it.

It is, of course, unwise to draw too man conclusions from tour matches - in 1993 Shane Warne was pasted all around New Road prior to bamboozling England in the tests – but there was little in India’s cricket at Taunton to keep the Andys awake at night. At Lord’s they will be bolstered by the return of Tendulkar, but his horrible record at Lord’s coupled with his lack of recent first class cricket may make the dream of completing his hundredth international hundred at the home of cricket unattainable, wonderful though it would be. If England perform as they can, and the weather behaves, then England could well leave North London with a 1-0 lead, and after that anything is possible.

There is no doubt that this is a fine Indian side – you don’t get to be number one in the world by accident, after all. However, the feeling lurks that they are a side just starting a downward slide. Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman have been written off before, of course, but they are all close to the end of their remarkable careers and a decline will have to set in at some point. England, in the meantime, are on the way up. The question is whether or not their upward trajectory will overtake Indian’s gentle downward curve this summer. Reading Gideon Haigh’s marvellous book about the recent Ashes series I was reminded of the 1958-9 England side that was touted as the strongest ever to leave these shores yet was hammered 4-0 in Australia. Speaking afterwards, Peter May blamed the defeat on the team looking better on paper than on the pitch – too many big names were finishing their careers. The thought persists that this may also be true of India in 2010-11.

All that said, however, it is hard not to see India’s quality shining through at some point. 2-1 to England.

So where were we?

It’s been a while. My blogging, which started with such a bang in the winter, has petered out somewhat of late. Perhaps it was a lack of enthusiasm for one day cricket, perhaps it was Ashes fatigue, perhaps it was sheer laziness. We shall never know.

During this hiatus there’s been some fascinating cricket. England’s extraordinary final afternoon at Cardiff was eventually enough to give them a thoroughly deserved series win against a Sri Lankan side struggling to come to terms with the loss of Murali, the constant political interference that was quite rightly criticised by the ever lucid Kumar Sangakkara and the rain that kept them off the field for long periods of the tests. In truth, however, the last was something of a mercy, for it kept the series scoreline respectable. When the sun shines and all is well they have a formidable batting line-up, but the bowling looked toothless and the fielding, in the tests at least, was execrable. On the first day at Lord’s Prasanna Jayawardene had to wait until after tea for a throw from the outfield that didn’t either have him scrabbling around in the dirt or extending his rather small frame as far as it would go. Without Murali, and with Ajantha Mendis having been exposed as the emperor’s new clothes, it could be a long few years for the Sri Lankans, in test cricket at least.

As for England, they did were comfortably the better side without consistently reaching the heights of Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. The bowlers were superb in the latter stages at Cardiff, but were wayward at Lord’s and rather fizzled out on the final afternoon at the Rose Bowl. Chris Tremlett cemented his place in the side, James Anderson’s importance to the attack was shown at Lord’s when he was missing and Graeme Swann was his usual self, but both Steven Finn (who had some luck) and Stuart Broad (who didn’t) struggled for rhythm, length and line, both bowling too short. With Tim Bresnan fit, Finn is surplus to requirements for the first India test and Broad may find himself going the same way.

Andrew Strauss struggled horribly for form, his footwork sluggish and his stance to the left arm over bowlers looking too open, but Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott took up where they had left off in Sydney, and with Ian Bell in sparkling form, Eoin Morgan showing signs of fulfilling his promise, Kevin Pietersen finding his way back to his best and Matt Prior playing arguably the innings of the summer so far at Lord’s, the batting looked in good shape. Sterner challenges await, but it is a mark of how far England have come that there was no collective panic at 22-3 on the first day at Lord’s, rather a rebuilding exercise that then blossomed into a free scoring final session.

The one dayers also brought some hope for England in a format that they do not generally enjoy. They were made to chase leather in the second and third games when the conditions suited the visitors, but they were devastating in helpful conditions at the Oval and Trent Bridge and were good enough to prevail in the most evenly matched game at Old Trafford. There is still much work to do, but Alastair Cook was a revelation, especially to the media, with the bat and the bowling and fielding were generally pretty good. Jade Dernbach had his moments and will be better for the experience but still doesn’t entirely convince in an England short, while there are still concerns about the batting order, especially with Ian Bell at number six. Still, it was a promising start to the post-World Cup rebuilding exercise.

The India series awaits (and a preview will appear here in due course), but England enter it with a decent first half of the summer behind them. Bring it on.