2nd Test: England 69/2 at lunch
NOTTINGHAM:Ishant Sharma and S Sreesanth got India off to a dream start by taking one early wicket apiece to put the hosts on the backfoot. Sharma opened the bowling with Praveen Kumar in the absence of Zaheer Khan who failed to recover from his hamstring injury for the second Test.
An overcautious start by the England openers led to the downfall of Alastair Cook (2) who, after surviving the first close shout against Sharma, was given out on the second one against the same bowler after India skipper MS Dhoni decided to bowl first.
Sreesanth, brought in as first change, was hit for a four by Strauss off the very first ball of his return to Test cricket. But he more than made up for it by taking out England No. 3 Jonathan Trott (4), who edged an outswinger straight to VVS Laxman in the slips, in the same over.
Kevin Pieterse then strode in to join his skipper Andrew Strauss in the middle with the score at 23 for two.
India made a couple of changes in their team that lost the first Test at Lord's. Other than Zaheer, Gautam Gambhir also failed to recover form his elbow injury suffered in the first Test.
Yuvraj Singh and Sreesanth replaced the injured duo. Rahul Dravid is most likely to open the innings in Gambhir's absence.
On the other hand, England made just one change from the team that won the first Test as the injured Chris Tremlett was replaced by fellow paceman Tim Bresnan.
With England already 1-0 up in the four-Test series following their convincing win at the Lord's, the pressure is on India. A two-match victory margin for England in the series will see them leapfrpog India to the No. 1 Test ranking.
Teams:
England: Andrew Strauss(c), Alastair Cook, Jonathan Trott, Kevin Pietersen, Ian Bell, Eoin Morgan, Matt Prior (wk), Stuart Broad, Tim Bresnan, Graeme Swann, James Anderson
India: Abhinav Mukund, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, MS Dhoni (c/wk), Harbhajan Singh, Ishant Sharma, Praveen Kumar, S Sreesanth.
News Posted: 29 July, 2011
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