England v India Second Test Review

By Zaheer Haque
The Second Test of this Series at Trent Bridge I felt would not live up to the excitement of Lords but it turned out to be an even better Test Match than the one at Lords.

India won the toss and quite rightly bowled first as Trent Bridge has over the past been a very bowler friendly pitch and teams winning the toss usually bowl first.

India bowlers made use of the very helpful bowling conditions to have England at 88-6 and then at Tea 124-8 it looked as though they would bowl out England for less than 140. However this wasn’t to be as after Tea both Broad and Swann were very aggressive with the bat and made a very crucial 73 run partnership for the ninth wicket. Stuart Broad was last man out for 64 off only 66 balls as England made 221 all out in difficult batting conditions.

This gave England huge momentum and the very first ball of India’s innings Mukund was out caught by Pietersen off the bowling of Anderson for a first ball duck.

The conditions became slightly better for batting but England applied themselves well with the ball to have India 139-4. They also had Yuvraj Singh dropped when he had only made a few. This would have meant that India would have had five wickets down for less than 150 with the potential of bowling India for around 175. This is because the rest of the batting line-up is very fragile and doesn’t make many runs.

Dravid batted brilliantly once again scoring another century regardless of the pitch conditions and the wickets falling around him. Yuvraj capitalised on being dropped cheaply and went on to make a half century. India was all out for 288 and David’s hundred was eclipsed by the amazing bowling of Broad who took 6 wickets which included a great hat-trick. He is surely on course to be a man of the series complete transformation in this series well done to him.

India had a useful lead of 67 with the pitch still favouring the bowlers and with Trott unable to bat at three as he got injured while fielding.

India would have felt that they were in with a chance of victory but what took place with some lacklustre bowling by India and brilliant batting by England amassed a stunning 544 all out and no one would have imagined it.

The foundation was built by a great classy innings by Bell batting at number three making 159. However his innings was overshadowed by his run out last ball before Tea which India in the tea break withdrew their appeal on grounds of spirit of cricket. It also saw Andy Flower who is England Coach and Andrew Strauss the England Captain to go to India dressing room to ask them to withdraw the appeal.

I feel that India were correct in their appeal and hadn’t damaged or infringed the ‘Spirit of Cricket’ and had it not been Tea and the intervention by England the decision wouldn’t have been changed by India.

The other outstanding innings was of Tim Bresnan who came in to the side for the injured Chris Tremlett make 90 before he was out and it was a shame as a century was what he deserved.

This meant that India had to bat for two days to make an improbable 478 but they didn’t even last the whole of the fourth day and were bowled out after Tea.

It was a stunning bowling Display by England bowling India out for 158 and really huge margin of victory 319 runs with Tendulkar half century the highlight of the India Innings.

Bresnan was in sensational form with the ball taking 5 wickets and surely remain in the team for many years to come. Broad also took a few wickets in the second innings and was quite rightly named man of the match.

I can see England if the weather remains dry to go on and win the series 4-0 as they have a huge psychological hold over India who are in utter disarray.