Collingwood rescues England

Paul Collingwood smashed a vital maiden test century to rescue England from a perilous position of 246/7 at the close of play yesterday, an innings which allowed the visitors to finish at 393 all out. Collingwood farmed the tail-end expertly which enabled Steven Harmison to make a notable contribution of 39, and managed to see off the second new ball well with his lower-order partners.

Before play began, there would’ve been a very small group of people who had held any hope for England reaching a decent total, but things began to look brighter when Hoggard and Collingwood played Anil Kumble comfortably in the morning session. Their stand that lasted for ten frustrating overs before Hoggard nicked one from Sreesanth on 11.

Harmison came in at ten, but decided against seeing off the new ball with Collingwood. Instead, the two men went on the offensive, and brought up a 50 run stand in 59 balls for the ninth wicket. Harmison’s blistering effort consisted of seven well-struck boundaries, and continued the momentum that England had created in the morning. After Lunch, Panesar managed to stay in for over an hour before getting castled by the excellent Sreesanth in his maiden test, the paceman’s forth wicket of the innings.

In the interval between Harmison’s dismissal and the end of the English innings, Collingwood stepped up a notch, and began to show why he is deserving of his place in the international side.

The all-rounder moved to 99 with a majestic six off of Kumble, and then ran three to bring up the ton. The feat was achieved in a hard-working 224 balls, of which there were eight fours and three sixes. Collingwood went on to carve another five boundaries before the fall of Monty Panesar brought the end of the innings with the visitors just seven behind the 400 mark.

The heroic efforts that were displayed by the English lower-order batsmen had put the whole team on a high, and their anticipation showed when, early in the Indian innings, Matthew Hoggard bowled a clever slower-ball which Virender Shewag drove straight to cover.

Rahul Dravid joined the nervous Wasim Jaffer at the crease after the dismissal, and India’s innings looked uncertain with the latter of the two having scored just 0 and 5 in his last test appearance at Trent Bridge against England in 2002.

Monty Panesar entered the visitors’ attack shortly after tea, and almost had instant success against Jaffer, who clipped the ball onto his foot, and then into the hands of silly-point. However, replays showed that the ball had just brushed the ground on its way through. Panesar looked encouraging throughout his short-spell, and managed to get the ball to drift in its flight, causing slight errors from the batsmen.

After the scare early on, Jaffer and Dravid managed to get settled for a while, and took minimal risks against the change bowlers to avoid triggering a collapse. The pair then backed themselves and played more fluently with slightly more expansive stroke-play against Harmison who didn’t seem to be bowling his best, whilst seeing off Panesar who was aiming into the rough outside the right-hander’s off-stump.

Ian Blackwell and the other English bowlers looked negligible as the day wore on, and Jaffer advanced towards his century confidently as Dravid closed on the half-ton.

Overall, England fought hard early on, but their bowling attack posed little threat to the Indian batsmen, who revived their team well. If India can continue in the morning without giving away many chances, and go on to make a sizable score, then England could find themselves in deep trouble with Kumble wheeling away at them on the forth day.

England 393
Paul Collingwood 134*, Alistair Cook 60, Andrew Flintoff 43
Irfan Pathan 3-92, Shanthakumaran Sreesanth 4-95

India 136-1
Wasim Jaffer 73*, Rahul Dravid 40*
Matthew Hoggard 1-23