The last time India played in England in a Test series was in 1996 and I was at the Lord’s match of that series when two young players made their debuts in the Indian side. Rahul Dravid was one of them and he came close to the very rare feat of scoring a century in his first Test match – and the even rarer one of doing this at Lord’s. The other player was Saurav Ganguly, and he went one better than Dravid by scoring a superb hundred, thereby getting his name on the famous centurion’s board in the dressing room at his first attempt. It is good to see these now mature masters back again this year.
Six years on the tyros are Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh. I saw Sehwag in the Lord’s One Day International and he looked superb scoring 71 runs off 65 balls and putting on over a hundred with his captain. But it was Yuvraj who really caught the eye. First he bowled seven overs of attacking spin taking the successive wickets of Flintoff, Thorpe and Hussain and reducing England from 201 for 2 to 222 for 5. When India batted Yuvraj came in with India struggling at 141 for 4 chasing 271. He then hit 64 runs at a run a ball and, together with Dravid, saw India home to an excellent victory with an over to spare. Yuvraj deservedly won the man of the match award and his form has continued in the other matches in the series – including an amazing 40 runs off 19 balls in the next England match - as well as significant “ship steadying” innings in the two Sri Lanka games.
India look to be the form side in the One Day series and will now play England in the final at Lord’s next Saturday. England are a strong batting outfit at the moment scoring over 500 runs in an innings in each of the Sri Lanka Tests, and also batting well in the one-dayers. But so far this English cricket “summer” has been marked by an absence of top class bowling. Murali was the only bowler high in the world rankings in the Test series, and he was less than fully fit. In the one day series none of the three teams has a bowler of real class playing (except for Harbhajan Singh, who seems unsuited to English conditions). So for the batsmen it is “help yourself time” and many of them have relished the opportunity. My guess is that it may be the same in the Test series and I would not be surprised to see some high scoring draws amongst the four matches. From an English perspective the key is whether Darren Gough will be fit and whether Matthew Hoggard can regain the form that seems to have deserted him for the moment. These two at full pace could cause some problems for the Indian batsmen. If we get a spell of decent weather, and some hard pitches, then the Indian spinners will be on more friendly terrain and England’s notorious vulnerability to spin might be tested. But at the moment it does look like the Tests will be more agreeable for the batsmen on both sides, than the bowlers.
This has been a damp old summer so far and my guess as to why Sri Lanka have so under-performed is that they are fed up with grey skies and constant interruptions to play – and who can blame them. The Lankan team has been here since mid April and they have rarely had conditions that suit them. The spirit seems to have gone out of the side and even Sanath Jayasuriya has found it hard to motivate them. They look like a side that cannot wait to get home – their first long tour to England has not been a happy one.
For India their tour has only just begun and it is very much “so far so good”. But any lover of Indian cricket knows that it would be premature to claim that the corner has been turned and that a consistently performing side has now emerged. Amazingly it seems that their new star Yuvraj Singh will not be staying on for the Test series - Sunil Gavaskar says that Yuvraj is “not yet ready for Test cricket”! From what I have seen he looks ready for any sort of cricket – I am sure that England supporters will breathe a sigh of relief when he boards the flight back to India next week!
Six years on the tyros are Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh. I saw Sehwag in the Lord’s One Day International and he looked superb scoring 71 runs off 65 balls and putting on over a hundred with his captain. But it was Yuvraj who really caught the eye. First he bowled seven overs of attacking spin taking the successive wickets of Flintoff, Thorpe and Hussain and reducing England from 201 for 2 to 222 for 5. When India batted Yuvraj came in with India struggling at 141 for 4 chasing 271. He then hit 64 runs at a run a ball and, together with Dravid, saw India home to an excellent victory with an over to spare. Yuvraj deservedly won the man of the match award and his form has continued in the other matches in the series – including an amazing 40 runs off 19 balls in the next England match - as well as significant “ship steadying” innings in the two Sri Lanka games.
India look to be the form side in the One Day series and will now play England in the final at Lord’s next Saturday. England are a strong batting outfit at the moment scoring over 500 runs in an innings in each of the Sri Lanka Tests, and also batting well in the one-dayers. But so far this English cricket “summer” has been marked by an absence of top class bowling. Murali was the only bowler high in the world rankings in the Test series, and he was less than fully fit. In the one day series none of the three teams has a bowler of real class playing (except for Harbhajan Singh, who seems unsuited to English conditions). So for the batsmen it is “help yourself time” and many of them have relished the opportunity. My guess is that it may be the same in the Test series and I would not be surprised to see some high scoring draws amongst the four matches. From an English perspective the key is whether Darren Gough will be fit and whether Matthew Hoggard can regain the form that seems to have deserted him for the moment. These two at full pace could cause some problems for the Indian batsmen. If we get a spell of decent weather, and some hard pitches, then the Indian spinners will be on more friendly terrain and England’s notorious vulnerability to spin might be tested. But at the moment it does look like the Tests will be more agreeable for the batsmen on both sides, than the bowlers.
This has been a damp old summer so far and my guess as to why Sri Lanka have so under-performed is that they are fed up with grey skies and constant interruptions to play – and who can blame them. The Lankan team has been here since mid April and they have rarely had conditions that suit them. The spirit seems to have gone out of the side and even Sanath Jayasuriya has found it hard to motivate them. They look like a side that cannot wait to get home – their first long tour to England has not been a happy one.
For India their tour has only just begun and it is very much “so far so good”. But any lover of Indian cricket knows that it would be premature to claim that the corner has been turned and that a consistently performing side has now emerged. Amazingly it seems that their new star Yuvraj Singh will not be staying on for the Test series - Sunil Gavaskar says that Yuvraj is “not yet ready for Test cricket”! From what I have seen he looks ready for any sort of cricket – I am sure that England supporters will breathe a sigh of relief when he boards the flight back to India next week!
