2-1 to the Engerland!!

09/12/12

 Thanks to another big hundred from the captain and 50+ scores from all of the top four along with useful runs from 6&7 England batted all of the third day.  Cook was brilliant again for 190, Trott next best with 80+.  Worryingly only Bell failed.

India skittled England out quickly on the fourth morning then their openers made hay right up until lunch when the counter attack brought then to 86-0.  However, first ball after lunch Swanny bowled Sehwag and after that our bowlers ripped through the top order taking six wickets in the session, Finn & Anderson taking the paudits..  Three more followed after tea but at the end Ashwin held England up and took the match into the final day.  Jimmy got his 7^th wicket of the match 10 balls into the 5^th morning and an easy England win looked sure thing however at 8-3 things looked a little sticky.  Compton stayed fast and Bell found a bit of fluency to lead England to a seven wicket win.

England were dominant winners without a major contribution from the KPego, which is reassuring.  Man of the match was Cook for his 190 but all four of England’s bowlers made big contributions in this match.  In fact every member of the team stepped up at some point in the match, including Samit Patel who has done little wrong in these matches but still must be most vulnerable to a change.  I’ve said it before, if we’re not going to use his bowling then we could get more runs from number 6 by picking a better batsman.

India have responded by dropping three players from the squad, have we seen the last of Harhajan, Zaheer & Yuvraj in tests?  I can see India improving in this next match but not enough to prevent England clinching the series.

So we wait the final test with England holding an unassailable lead and hoping to win the series.  Who would have predicted that?  Oh yea…..