It’s advantage India

India’s bowlers gave their team a great chance to win the second Test at Trent Bridge in Nottingham by making good use of the heavy overcast conditions on the first day and following it up with tight spells on the second morning.

The opening pair of Jaffer and Karthik then added to England’s woes by putting up a big partnership and laying a good, solid foundation for the rest of the batsmen to carry on and take India to a position from where they can go on to take the lead in the three-match Test series.

It will need the same determination that Jaffer and Karthik have shown and the same application as well, for if the weather changes, then batting may not be easy, and so all the more reason for India to stick it out there and try and get as big a lead as possible so that they don’t have to bat again in this game.

Dravid has done his team a big favour by winning the toss and sending England in to bat in conditions where the problem was how to control the swing.

When Zaheer was able to get his line right, he was straightaway among the wickets. Just like he made the South African captain Graeme Smith his bunny in the series last year, he has made another left-handed opener, Andrew Strauss, his bunny in the series so far.

He lured him into a drive and Tendulkar completed a catch that was an action replay of the dismissal at Lord’s. Then Vaughan was sucked into playing a delivery that swung and bounced for Tendulkar to take another one.

The Indians had done their homework well, and so Zaheer came around the wicket to the England skipper, and it worked.

Then R.P. Singh got one to swing back into Pietersen and got the big wicket. Ganguly, not to be left out of the action, got his man Cook again and leg-before too. Kumble got his customary quota of three wickets when the top was taken by the seamers.

The Indian openers had their slices of luck, for the ball was swinging, but not in the alarming manner in which it swung when India bowled. The weather had changed too with the sun being out, and that helped the pitch to be drier too.

India also helped their cause a bit, though not intentionally, by taking a little time to dismiss the last three wickets, which allowed the pitch to settle down by the time Jaffer and Karthik came in to bat. All this may be slices of luck, but that’s what this game is all about.

The England bowlers tried too hard, and so missed out on bowling the right line and length, and let the openers settle down. No praise can be too high for the manner in which Jaffer and Karthik applied themselves in tough conditions and gave their team a great start.

Karthik was the more aggressive of the two, as he laid into anything that was slightly overpitched or off-line, and made sure that the England bowlers had no encouragement with an early wicket.

The frustration of the England bowlers was evident when they resorted to verbals, after discovering that they were not able to get the ball to move as much as the Indian bowlers had. But they should have directed their words at their own fielders, who muffed up some catches that were admittedly difficult, but which ought to have been taken in modern-day cricket.

Jaffer got a great delivery when Tremlett, who looked most likely to get a wicket, finally got his line as well as length right.

Anderson was aggressive but not on target, and Sidebottom was off-colour just like Sreesanth was for India. India, having the lead, are in a good position to drive home the advantage and give themselves a great chance to win the Test.

The middle-order batsmen need to follow the example of the openers and bat with the same determination and application. If they do that, they could well be one-up by the fourth day.  —