India v England 4th Test, Nagpur

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So we are reaching the last lap of the series with lots of things at stake.
England are 2-1 up, and this is a historic chance for Alastair Cook's side to make history by winning a series in India after 28 years. After a dreadful year where they lost 7 test matches and the well earned number one ranking, England seem to be getting firmly back on track.
Captain Cook is leading from the front, Kevin Pietersen and Matt Prior are backing him well with the bat and Nick Compton has been solid if not spectacular. Of late Jonathan Trott also found some form. James Anderson has been good, Monty Panesar and Graeme Swann comfortably outbowled their Indian spin counterparts.
There are injury concerns though Steven Finn, who bowled very well in the last match is almost ruled out. Stuart Broad won't be able to step in for him, as he's already ruled out. That leaves a straight choice between Tim Bresnan and Graeme Onions. Bresnan has struggled to match his ashes form since his elbow troubles, and was pretty poor at Ahmedabad in the first test. Onions didn't have a great time in the tour matches. I would personally go for Onions, who has more pace than Bresnan has and bowls a wicket to wicket line. But England might prefer Bresnan's experience and his previous record in the sub-continent. There are questions over Samit Patel's place as well. Patel hasn't really gone on to play a big innings so far, but he has got a few important starts. If Finn's ruled out, his 5th bowling option would be more handy for England.
As far as India go, its a test match at the crossroads for them. The team has lost 2 back to back home tests after 12 years. They are facing the prospect of a home series loss after 8 years. All these come on top of the disasters in England and Australia. The batting isn't firing, the spinners are being outbowled. The leader of the pace pack is send packing by the selectors. There are shrill calls for the captain's head.
Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni expects his side to show some character in these circumstances. He expects Gautam Gambhir to convert one of those starts into a big one and he believes Sachin Tendulkar, as he has often done will deliver for his team and prove the speculators wrong. He things he can handle the criticism coming his way.
They are sure to go in with 2 changes as Zaheer Khan and Yuvraj Singh who played the previous matches are dropped. It could be Ajinkya Rahane's much anticipated test debut. He might bat 6 in place or else they can bat him at 5 and push Virat Kohli to 6. The other option is to pick Ravindra Jadeja who has been in the form of his life in the Ranji Trophy this season. Jadeja has already scored over 800 runs with 2 triple hundreds for Saurashtra and has picked 26 wickets with his left-arm spin. Playing Jadeja would mean they can play 3 spinners without losing the balance of the attack. The absence of Zaheer and the unavailability of the injured Umesh Yadav might mean that Ishant Sharma's experience might see him playing. Remains to bee seen as to who would partner him in the seam bowling department. Ashok Dinda has been in the squad for some time, Parvinder Awana has good pace and recent good form.
As far as the pitch goes, cricinfo reports that it hasn't been watered for the last couple of days. So the dry pitch should turn. From when onwards and how much remains to bee seen.
Weather is expected to stay good.

Your right MFC- Root actually reminds me of cook!!

thats a massive compliment

I have been really impressed with Root, i said earlier that i liked the idea of him coming in this test and its paying off.

If England can just get to 320 then i think that it will be a competitive score

Well you were right about prior an all..

Good effort from him

Game is right in the balance now.. pretty much 2/1 on any result

massive session here.

All out for 300 = advantage india
350+ = advantage england.

Am very interested to see how anderson and bresnan bowl on here, and see if the indians have as much trouble scoring (I do hope so for england's sake).

Cant see an advantage for any team right now except for maybe England. They are eating up the overs and its India that will have to force the issue to get something out of this test and series.

difficult to say until we see india bat. If they are able to score at a quicker rate than england, then their is still plenty of time in the match to force a win.

True but i still think that because India have to force the issue that it will give England a slight advantage.

Bresnan might end up being a key person. He will need to keep it tight and not give anything away.

This is the kind of track that McGrath was an absolute gem on. Pure tight stump to stump bowling is whats required.

6 from Swann

In the betting stakes at the time it was in the balance.

However england were in control beccause we need a draw or a win- which brings it down to evens for england and 2/1 for india..

However now the draw is closer to evens on its own - england 2/1 and india creeping up to 3/1!!

it certainly is advantage england!

btw the draw was about 15/1 at one point yesterday, and I was even calling for a 3/4 day test match!!

now the draw is the odds on fav!

Swanny going along very nicely

Shame that Root is gone but what an innings

Root

Swanny is like a vettori x2!!

great whack down the ground!

Superb from Swann, Really giving England the advantage here

Dammit all, i curse Swann with my praise

Still, well played

eirebilly curseth again

Billy you jinxed him

Here comes Monty and Jimmy!

I am shocking Shah

I will stop commenting now

Come on MONTY!

he scores!!!

Monty well on his way to that hundred

happy with 330!

showed some fight there..

Goddamit Jimmy, you've denied Monty some runs there

So : 330 it is.

More than I expected to be honest. Might have been a few more if Swanny hadn't decided to be a little too creative

But no complaints , Root a fine debut , Prior does what Prior does and Swann played unusually carefully to make a very valuable sixty...good work all round , batted one and a half days exactly too...

Will it be a "good" score in context ? My hunch is yes , but we'll have a better idea in an hour or two...don't think Sehwag will be blocking everything

JIMMY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1/1

What a start for England !

Jimmy

That was pretty pathetic from Sehwag tbh but good delivery from Jimmy

Jimmy

when you rip the middle stump out like that and dont touch the other two- the buzz- its perfection


woohoo!

With Sehwag went whatever chances India had of building a decent in some decent time.
Had to expect the worst when Piyush Chawla finished with 4 wickets!.
Missed all of England first innings on day 2, but Joe Root played a superb knock, and Graeme Swann and Matt Prior made very valuable contributions. England benefiting from a long batting lineup, with Chawla coming in at 9, India too have a longish batting lineup, and like England, there is a debutant scheduled to bat 6.

Pujara playing shots ...not quite Sehwag but he's getting on with it...

Spin introduced in the eighth over...and Monty starts with a maiden , well watched by Pujara.

Gambhir not wishing to let Monty settle ...getting down the track to loft him back over his head.
Very different approach from the early England batsmen.

Scoring has seemed a little easier today...perhaps the pitch is a fraction quicker.

Swann on now , fair enough to the left hander , just before tea

I'm still not convinced we scored enough. I think we will have a better idea of a par score on this track at the close of play today. Hopefully India won't be 120 - 1.

India happy to not lose another wicket after Sehwag...no real alarms for these two after the first few overs.
Not seen anything yet from Monty or Swann in his one over that would worry them , but as the ball gets older we might see scoring become difficult , as we saw yesterday. Cook will probably have to shuffle his attack around a bit more here...this is not a pitch on which you just wind up a couple of spin bowlers and let them bowl all day.

It may be England would have liked another fifty or so : depends how patient the Indian batsmen can be , as I don't think they'll be racing to 300 quickly , unless England totally lose the plot. I suppose that won't matter all that much , as if they were to get 500 , even over two and a bit days , it would put England under a fair bit of pressure batting on day five.

LivinginItaly wrote:I'm still not convinced we scored enough. I think we will have a better idea of a par score on this track at the close of play today. Hopefully India won't be 120 - 1.

Agree with this. I think its a good score considering we were 130-5 and staring at 200 all out which would have been terrible. But outright it is probably a bit below par batting first and for that amount of time.

India have to push the run rate, 250s a good score in a day here so its going to take them the best part of the next 2 days just to match us. That gives them 2 days to set a total and bowl us out cheaply

Gambhir still involved in some madcap running, very nearly getting himself run out there. Pujara too hasn't been very good there.

haven't seen any of the cricket, but why is the scoring rate so slow?

how boring- come back and its 58/1!!!

India have been scoring close to 3 here, fair enough I'd say.

Biltong wrote:haven't seen any of the cricket, but why is the scoring rate so slow?

the wicket isnt zipping - its going through very short, some of indias bolwers were almost double bouncing the ball yesterday!!

however I would have also thought that there is no need to push the scoring from Englands POV- We only need the draw..

so a combination of both.

I am sure India will score quicker- as they need to

DRS strikes again, for England it was Cook, for India its a well set Cheteshwar Pujara. Swann gets the benefit.

Pujara gone, Sachin in. Potentially a massive innings as India might not bat twice.

It is so funny listening to the indian commentators lamenting a bad decision. USE DRS!!!!!

The umpiring in this series has been desperately poor, hope the bloody BCCI is taking note.

what is the reason the BCCI do not want to use the DRS?

Yes msp.. I really would like india to get some really bad luck towards the end- well both teams have anyway- but if the luck swings in englands favour- then they may take not!!

It is very interesting to note that whilst the indian commentators are complaining about bad umpiring decisions not one of them suggests the need, or indeed benefit, of using DRS. Could this be intentional? i,e, they have been instructed to not voice an opinion about it. It just seems strange given that the english commentators on sky mention its absence every time their is a close call.