Onto Mohali.. 0-0

So.. after the first test, the England team showed India that they would be far tougher competition than previously thought.


There were several excellent performances. However, for me the performance that made all the difference was Paul Collingwood's century in the first innings. If that innings had not materialized, I am sure that England would have crashed to a heavy defeat.


The test also showed why India are a very good side. With the Ganguly issue finally seeming to die down, the Indians seemed a much settled side without any differences and a single leader - Rahul Dravid. Earlier, I had been very skeptical of making Dravid the captain, mostly because of the fear that we will loose our best batsman to the pressures of captaincy. Now after about half season, it is clear that captaincy has not affected his batting adversely. It could even have improved it as he seems a lot more confident and positive now.


India's atrocious attempt at victory late in the match, I believe, helped them save the match more easily than otherwise. Imagine a scenerio where after tea, with the dismissal of Dravid, instead of Pathan, Tendulkar had walked out. The English team would have attacked him with his greatest weakness, playing defensively to left arm bowlers. There would have been a good chance that he would have been dismissed early and from then on, England with their tails up would have attacked furiously and could have caused a collapse. The fact that the Indians pretended to go for the win spread the field with only 3 people inside the circle(if there was one) and no men in attacking positions making it easier for us to save the game. It also gave England a huge scare and did not allow them to get a "Winning Draw" (commentators terminalogy).

Onto the next test then, Mohali - is a a venue where a draw is more likely. The results at Mohali from Cricinfo -

WI  won  243 runs   won  1st n  3rd Test  Ind v WI  1994/95 [1278]
-   draw -          -    -   n  1st Test  Ind v SL  1997/98 [1385]
-   draw -          -    -   n  1st Test  Ind v NZ  1999/00 [1462]
Ind won  10 wickets won  2nd n  1st Test  Ind v Eng 2001/02 [1574]
-   draw -          -    -   y  2nd Test  Ind v NZ  2003/04 [1662]
-   draw -          -    -   n  1st Test  Ind v Pak 2004/05 [1738]

This gives India a slight psychological edge to India as their only win at this venue has come against England.


I think India should get Munaf Patel into the team. We have been hearing about this bowler for about 2-3 years now and he did exceptionally well in the warm up game. Left to me, I would replace Kaif with Piyush Chawla and Harbhajan with Munaf Patel. However, I think the team management thinks it is mandatory to play Yuvraj. Hence most probably Yuvraj will replace Kaif and that will be the only change. Hopefully the team management will be bold enough to attack with 5 bowlers.

Should be another fascinating test match..