England v India 2007

Broad and Bopara batted with a judgment many of their colleagues lacked to pull a tense, lowscoring and heated encounter back England's way. Coming together in the 24th over still 99 short, they counted down in tens of runs, refused to dwell on near misses, and ultimately came through with time to spare. England could only be encouraged by the calm of two players each making only his 13th appearance. For Broad, who had earlier taken four wickets, the achievement made a nice riposte to his father Chris's suggestion that he would be better off away from Test action in Sri Lanka before Christmas. His new-ball partnership with Anderson was becoming a feature of the series - one finding swing, the other bowling back of a length - and they put the brake on India straight away. England fielded dynamically and the pitch hardly encouraged strokeplay. Tendulkar was aghast at gifting his wicket to Pietersen after grafting hard, while Yuvraj Singh took 90 balls to reach fifty. That seemed time well spent as Agarkar punished England for reckless shot selection. Umpire Gould stepped in during an exchange between Yuvraj and Pietersen: pressure was clearly getting to both sides, but a misunderstanding between the well-set Collingwood and Bopara suggested England were buckling. "On my way off, I told Ravi to go on and win it," Collingwood said. His orders were obeyed to the letter.