India v England, 1st Test - Indian first innings breakdown
December 15th 2008 15:26
This is the beauty of Test cricket - one instant with two class batsmen at the crease everything looked safe and the English bowling was being milked with ease. But Laxman fell driving uppishly - albeit that was a good catch by Monty. Then Tendulkar played too soon to a Flintoff warmup delivery. I dont believe the ball stopped. It was just a case of the ball not being as fast as Tendulkar thought it might be. And Flintoff does not miss any!
Worst possible way for India - to lose both settled batsmen at around the same score. India now trail by 190 with Yuvraj and Dhoni at the crease. Till now Yuvraj has looked at ease against both pace and spin. He is now being given a thorough once over by Flintoff with his around the wicket away swingers to the left hander. He has occasionally missed a few but mostly left the ball through which would be the right thing to do with this line.
Dhoni has as always been busy. There have been one or two hairy moments like the one against Swann where he tried a premediated sweep to almost lose balance before he righted himself leaning on the bat as if it was a walking stick. One wishes Dhoni takes that premeditation out of his game but then it is his unpredictability which has brought him such rich returns. I guess we just have to take him as a package and see what he can give us. This is a very crucial period for India and they would like to go in for the day without any wicket falling.
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