India finishes its assault on the English, goes 1-0 up

The young Guns celebrate after wrapping up the game in India’s favour.

“Earlier I tried to hit all bouncers. Now I play the pull shot but leave balls above my shoulder”, said Cheteshwar Pujara, the MoM for the test. The above statement itself tells us how the man thinks. He approaches the game in the simplest way possible, in getting the basics right and doing what the team wants him to do. He and many others, contributed in what was another extension in India’s 11 game unbeaten streak at home.

It is fair to say that all in all, India did beat England in all possible departments including fielding. Coming from the wake of a sturdy resistance by Cook and Prior, India was all but definite about a easy 5th day, wherein they’d expect the ball to do all sorts of things. The dead Ahmedabad pitch ,though, denied them a wicket for almost 10 overs. But once Ojha dismissed Prior(91) and Cook(176), the English could do all but flap their wings to get to a lead of a meek 76. Ojha ended up with an impressive figures of 165-9, for the match.

Ojha had a great outing, overall, in Ahmedabad.

It couldn’t have been easier for Sehwag and the makeshift opener Pujara, who opened for Gambhir as the latter had to flow back to attend his grandmother’s funeral, who trotted along at an expected rate of nearly 6-an-over, until Sehwag skied one off Swann to be caught at long off boundary, nanometers inside the rope. Kohli then joined Pujara (41*) to guide the Indians home with over 3 hrs remaining on the clock.

Cook and Prior played valiant knocks, but in vain.

Prior, later in the press conference did agree to the fact that the demons were more in the minds of the batsmen than on the pitch. But it was heartening to see the way the English fought back in the second innings, showing the very determination the Indians lacked in the tour to England, last summer. And without doubts, the English team will  take away a lot of positives from the game. At least three of their players looked comfortable against the highly rated Indian spin attack and with the likes of Pietersen around, you can somehow spot a good old fashioned Indian test match, with all the bowlers being murdered, on the flattest looking tracks in the world ,in the offing. Next test starts from this Friday,in Mumbai, which mostly will again offer a lot of assistance to the spinners. But this time around, one should not expect the match to be one-sided, for the currently-bashed-up English are one hell of a squad.