***Official*** England in India

[flibbertyjibber]

If England can go up to 350 and bat out at least 2 sessions for tomorrow then I reckon they will be in a pretty good position to win the series

The telling stat is that India need 15 more wickets to have any chance of forcing a positive result in their favour, 5 in a day with 3 gifted to them by poor umpiring/batting means they need to improve or hope the pitch wears. From an England point of view if our next 15 wickets score as many as the Indian 10 in the first innings we will have a cracking match set up.

Difficult to know which side has had the better day, can only really tell when India bat. Trouble is for them if England do crawl up to 300+ they will need to bat well and more positively than England which could mean wickets tumble.

 

[Jono]

Being serious you needed a 2nd paceman to exploit the uneven bounce first up, might have been a different game if you had one in the side. Done very little for the spinners so far but that will change as the game progresses. Still a crap pitch for a test match as it so slow. Game will probably be decided by which side has that crap session with the bat and loses a ruck of wickets from nowhere.

Yep 2 pace bowlers would have been better, but I don't think you'll see bowlers jumping for joy with this pitch.

Who knows how this will play on day 2-3 but no doubt the pitch makes for boring cricket.

 

[smash84]

The telling stat is that India need 15 more wickets to have any chance of forcing a positive result in their favour, 5 in a day with 3 gifted to them by poor umpiring/batting means they need to improve or hope the pitch wears. From an England point of view if our next 15 wickets score as many as the Indian 10 in the first innings we will have a cracking match set up.

Difficult to know which side has had the better day, can only really tell when India bat. Trouble is for them if England do crawl up to 300+ they will need to bat well and more positively than England which could mean wickets tumble.

fair points

 

[SS1]

Disgraceful cricket wicket. One of the dullest days Test cricket I have ever seen.

Great fightback by England to get to 199/5. Prior is a fine cricketer and young Root did very well. Some question marks in these conditions still to be answered. Trott, after appearing to be able to concentrate for days when he first came in, now is prone to the most shambolic lapses in concentration. Bell, under pressure yet again, plays a stupid shot. I would seriously be scouring CC for another middle order batsman.

Going forward, all going according to plan England will look at 300+ and probably want to at least bat until tea time tomorrow if at all possible. Even doing that will only see them get 330/350.

For India, all on Sehwag. If he gets going, India could be right in the Test, if not, it'll probably be Day 4 before the teams are on parity.

 

[Jono]

Let's wait and see what happens.

But you made the post after what, 20 minutes of play? How this pitch plays on day 3 isn't relevant unless you were suggesting in your post that this pitch by day 3 will take the skill out of the game, which I very much doubt you were. A few balls had variable bounce early no doubt, but once you get in it is hard to be dismissed. You have to dismiss yourself.

Fact is Mumbai was more of a "lottery" than this (and that wasn't a lottery either).

 

[wpdavid]

Has to be India's day doesn't it? Even allowing for the mini-recovery by Root and Prior. It will still be a major surprise if we make 300, and the likeliest bet is we'll be well short of that if one of these guys goes early on tomorrow. India can then take as long as they want to build up a sizeable lead leaving us to bat out of our skins to fail to save the match on whatever remains of the pitch on days 4 and 5.

Root proved me wrong. I really thought he wouldn't cope with batting miles out of position on debut in these conditions, but he did well. Bell, unfortunately, proved everybody right yet again. Has there ever been a more spineless performer who has been given a free ride in the side despite everything that we've seen from him in 2012?

And seeing Bresnan in the side is just depressing.

 

[centurymaker]

But you made the post after what, 20 minutes of play? How this pitch plays on day 3 isn't relevant unless you were suggesting in your post that this pitch by day 3 will take the skill out of the game, which I very much doubt you were. A few balls had variable bounce early no doubt, but once you get in it is hard to be dismissed. You have to dismiss yourself.

Fact is Mumbai was more of a "lottery" than this (and that wasn't a lottery either).

agree 100%.

this seems to be a typical dead pitch.
almost impossible to score fast, hard to dismiss either

 

[Spark]

The closest comparison I can find were some of the WI decks we had to play on this year. Seriously, seriously slow and batsmen getting slow "starts" but really pushing on were common.

 

[Neil Pickup]

But you made the post after what, 20 minutes of play? How this pitch plays on day 3 isn't relevant unless you were suggesting in your post that this pitch by day 3 will take the skill out of the game, which I very much doubt you were. A few balls had variable bounce early no doubt, but once you get in it is hard to be dismissed. You have to dismiss yourself.

Fact is Mumbai was more of a "lottery" than this (and that wasn't a lottery either).

Correct and I'll concede that point unless Anderson and Bresnan shoot India out in double-quick time.

Mumbai, for the record, was an excellent Test pitch in my book.

 

[Jono]

Yeah Mumbai was a great wicket, won't see any argument from me.

 

[centurymaker]

i think england are going about it the right way. they really have no incentive to attack and in the process risk gifting wickets on this pitch.

all they need to do is bat close to 3 days to get a draw here, so if they managed to bat half the day tomorrow, the draw option would really be open.

 

[SS1]

Paul Collingwood, out there commentating for Star has tweeted that he doesn't think this game goes past Day 3 due to the wicket. Botham has just said he thinks 250 is a decent score on it !

I personally think 300 is more reasonable and attainable as difficult as it is to score on, its also tough to take wickets on. Cook wasn't out and Bell, Trott and KP gave their wickets away. Even Compton wouldn't be happy nicking off to the only ball of the day that got above waist height. If Prior stays there and the tail can accompany him, another 100 runs should be manageable.

India will have to force it against a better bowling attack IMO. England have 2 seamers (although I wouldn't have picked Bresnan) and 2 better spinners. I still think England are probably just about ahead.

 

[centurymaker]

sehwag is key here

if sehwag gets going indian will win imo. (i.e scores 100+)

if he doesn't, then england will be ahead.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

The strange thing is we have reached the end of the first day and nobody really has any clue which side has had the better day. Not very often you can say that about a game as usually you know if your side has underperformed or not but this pitch is so slow that it could be extremely hard to take 20 wickets on in time to win it for either side.

 

[Jono]

Yeah no one knows how much this is going to break up. All speculation. Hopefully it does.

 

[centurymaker]

The strange thing is we have reached the end of the first day and nobody really has any clue which side has had the better day. Not very often you can say that about a game as usually you know if your side has underperformed or not but this pitch is so slow that it could be extremely hard to take 20 wickets on in time to win it for either side.

AND
it will be get slower and lower in all likelihood

india could crumble given the sort of pressure they are under atm, can never rule that out

glad i stopped watching the match after 1 hr or so into the day's play # bore-fest

 

[SS1]

Pietersen in the press conference has just said that this is the hardest wicket he has ever batted on in his Test career.

 

[Prince EWS]

I just have a feeling someone like Sehwag will make scoring look so much easier on this wicket. It definitely seemed really hard for the batsmen to time anything from what we saw today but the English batsmen would've felt this pitch was from Mars; Sehwag and Tendulkar could well find ways to score at a decent pace and get set with all their experience and suitability to these pitches and Pujara won't throw it away in frustration like the England middle order seemed to either.

It's definitely not a very good Test wicket but I'm reserving judgement on how easy it is to bat on; I certainly don't think 250-300 is a par first innings score like some do, even if it may end up a winning score because of how hard it gets to bat on later. I reckon it'll get tougher to bat on as the match goes on and that sort of total could well be an excellent third innings score but England have squandered the advantage they got from winning the toss by refusing to tough it out and build a big, long boring top order partnership.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

AND
it will be get slower and lower in all likelihood

india could crumbe given the sort of pressure they are under atm, can never rule that out

glad i stopped watching the match after 1 hr or so into the day's play # bore-fest

Which means on day 3 you might only get 150 runs.

 

[centurymaker]

Which means on day 3 you might only get 150 runs.

would feel sorry for the spectators at the stadium

wonder what the barmy army that is present over there is thinking