It won't be easy for team to bounce back
There has always been this smug feeling that even if there is a question mark over the bowling the most lustrous batting line-up in the game for some years now will see the Indians through any crisis.
The prime example is perhaps Napier 2009 when the team after following on more than 300 runs in arrears and with a little more than two days still left drew the game with a stout hearted batting display that lasted 180 overs and produced a closing score of 476 for four.
From this viewpoint ' besides others of course ' the defeat at Lord's can be taken as a major disappointment. After all it is not only at home but also abroad that the Indian batting has displayed its lustre in unmistakable terms. How then to explain the mediocrity of totals of 286 and 261 in the just concluded Test?
There were always going to be doubts as to whether the bowling was good enough to dismiss England twice in a Test.
And there was never any chance of that happening when Zaheer Khan withdrew on the first day after an exemplary spell. But as long as the batting centred around the likes of Gautam Gambhir, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Suresh Raina and MS Dhoni there was always the hope that India would draw the game.
There will be those who will be of the view that only the battle has been lost and not the war, that India have a habit of losing the first Test ' thanks in part to lack of adequate preparation ' before bouncing back.But there is something about this English team that is rather special.
Now that they have been given an avenue, Andrew Strauss and his men will not let the advantage slip. True, the Indians in the absence of Sehwag were not at full strength, the withdrawal of Zaheer weakened their none-too-strong bowling line-up further and the injury to Gambhir and the indisposition of Tendulkar meant a bit of a shake-up in the batting order the second time arou'nd.
But all this cannot be an alibi for the No 1 ranked team suffering defeat in a game in which they picked up only 14 wickets and failed to cross 300 each time they batted.
Sehwag will not be around for the second Test at Nottingham and Zaheer has to be a doubtful starter. So there are problems for the Indians even before the match starts. There are no such headaches for England. They know that victory by a two-match margin would give them the top slot.
News Posted: 28 July, 2011
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