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Sreesanth bowled intelligently, relying on reverse swing, to trouble the batsman on a flat track
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As in October 2004, India picked up seven wickets on an opening day at
Nagpur, only this time there was no resplendent batting to take the game
away from them, or costly wicketkeeping lapses to intensify their pain.
The green-sprinkled surface prepared for that game - in many ways, the
beginning of the end for Sourav Ganguly - bore no resemblance to the
turgid grassless pitch on show today, though in S Sreesanth and Irfan
Pathan, India had two bowlers more than capable of testing a batting
line-up without Michael Vaughan and Marcus Trescothick - 10,097 runs and
28 Test centuries between them.
Back then, the Australian openers had added 67 before Zaheer Khan produced
a superb second spell that reduced them to 86 for 3. It was a similar
story this morning, with England proceeding fairly untroubled to 56 before
a slash from Andrew Strauss resulted in the first wobble.
India lost that game in the afternoon, when Damien Martyn and Darren
Lehmann combined in a stirring counterattack that saw 143 runs clattered
in 29 overs. There was no such generosity from the bowlers after lunch
today though, with England able to eke out just 68 runs from the 30 overs
bowled in the session. Even more pleasing was the fact that both Sreesanth
and Pathan capitalised on Scrooge-like spells from the spinners to pick up
a wicket each.
With the conditions not abetting swing and the pitch providing no lateral
movement, both men relied heavily on reverse swing to break through. Kevin
Pietersen's was the crucial wicket, hustled into an inside-edge by a
Sreesanth delivery timed at 87.1 mph. With Pietersen gone, and Andrew Flintoff forced to adopt a more circumspect approach given the situation, England just didn't have a batsman capable of upsetting the bowlers' rhythm.
Paul Collingwood batted with commendable grit and application in stifling
heat for his half-century, but he has neither the inventiveness nor the
shot repertoire to tear an attack apart. By contrast, Australia had Darren
Lehmann's stroke-filled 70 and Michael Clarke's busy 73 to buttress
Martyn's immaculate 114.
On that day when India leaked 362 runs, Murali Kartik had been the
standout performer for India, varying flight and pace for figures of 3 for
57. And though Sreesanth's pace and control caught the eye on debut today,
Pathan's was as valuable a contribution. With no conventional swing to
keep him in his element, he had to dig deep to create opportunities,
especially after a wayward and disappointing opening spell. The fact that
the two men adopted such disparate methods - with only reverse swing in
common - kept the batsmen guessing, unlike on the recent tour of Pakistan
when the sameness of the left-arm pace attack cost India dear.
England's inability to up the ante, especially against the slow bowlers,
meant that Rahul Dravid never really had to rethink his strategy. The
Australians had trained their sights on Anil Kumble, and taken him for
four an over, but apart from one or two shots that spelt attacking intent,
neither he nor Harbhajan Singh was under any pressure today.
What it did show, however, was that the English batsmen had learnt from
the debacle in Lahore, when utterly mindless application of the sweep shot
against the far-from-lethal Shoaib Malik ended their hopes. Despite his
discomfiture against Harbhajan, Alastair Cook's 160-ball vigil highlighted
the virtues of old-fashioned opening batsmanship. Unfortunately, only
Collingwood could follow his lead. And with no Martyn, Lehmann, or even a
Trescothick in sight, it was always going to be India's day.