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.