Dada strikes with bat and bowl to steer India to victory

HEADINGLEY: Down for the count, to juxtapose some boxing parlance with cricket, an inspired India picked themselves up from the mat admirably to beat England by 38 runs in a rain-interrupted match decided by the Duckworth-Lewis method.

Headingley was under a heavy cloud cover when the match finally ended after a third stoppage, but Rahul Dravid and his team would have believed that the sun had finally begun to shine on them. This series is still alive.

Spunky England, with never-say-die Paul Collingwood leading from the front, put up a gallant fight despite the loss of quick early wickets.

Pietersen fell for nothing, Cook, Bopara and Broad for next to nothing, but the captain played a spectacular sixer-filled innings (91 off 71 balls, 4x6) to keep the pressure on the Indians. Ultimately, though, hunting down 324 after losing four wickets for a little over hundred proved a bit too much.

After a traumatic week, there was serious doubt amongst cricket aficionados whether beleaguered India could raise their level of performance, get out of the rut they had fallen into. But the players responded strongly, suggesting that the fight had not yet gone out of them. While the fielding remained poor, the batting was scintillating, and the bowling incisive, indicating a team on the upswing.

Perhaps losing the toss was a boon, for Dravid may have been tempted to field first too had he called correctly. The Headingley pitch traditionally has something in it for seam and swing bowlers in the morning, but if there was anything today, it was effectively blunted by Tendulkar and Ganguly.

They began studiously, sniffing around for any ogre in the track, found none, then opened out to post yet another century partnership. The pitch in fact was so true, and of such even bounce, that the batsmen could improvise almost at will. Both openers looked good for their respective hundreds too, but fell unexpectedly, just when the bowlers were ready to wave the white handkerchief.

Gambhir and Yuvraj got half centuries too, as the weakness in the England attack on a plumb track began to seriously show up. Andrew Flintoff was badly missed, and with Anderson having an off-day of sorts, the bowling was flayed to all parts of the ground. When the total surged past 300, Collingwood knew that his gamble of fielding first had perhaps backfired.

England needed quick runs and big partnerships at the start to keep the target within reach. But Cook fell early, done in by a beautiful late outswinger from Agarkar, and India were now the aggressive predators.

Two dropped slip catches messed up Dravid’s attacking intents and the hard work of the bowlers, but Dhoni, keeping up to Ganguly pulled off a smart stumping to get rid of the dangerous Matt Prior, and when Zaheer Khan got Pietersen with a peach of a delivery, the difficulty quotient had zoomed up to a phenomenally high level.

There were the stupendous six-hits and heroism of Collingwood to savour, but with Owais Shah, Bopara and Broad falling cheaply, the England captain was left in charge of a losing cause.