It's not often you get to see a spell of high class fast bowling (as opposed to swing and seam, mind) from an Indian. So maybe when one such comes along, it's a cue to applaud; several Indian fielders in fact punctuated the deliveries with ostentatious applause, and none of the by-rote shabash shabash that greets even innocuous half trackers.
Munaf Patel took one over after tea to line his ducks up; he then took a positive shine to Kevin Pietersen.
Three deliveries were pitched well up at a gentle medium-fast-ish pace, each drawing the batsman well forward. The fourth, completely out of the blue, was a scorcher -- pitched back of length, the ball kept climbing at pace as Pietersen rose up on his toes, then off the ground fending at it awkwardly and taking the hit on the shoulder. The next was another bouncer, even more awkward and again, Pietersen was all at sea. Followed the yorker, which the batsman just managed to dig out.
Munaf then got to square up against Andrew Strauss, who avoided taking a single first up, probably to give his partner some breathing space. Munaf switched to round the wicket, gave him the short one, then two full deliveries that narrowly escaped the LBW; then came the ball of the spell, a very quick, full delivery that deviated to go between bat and body, beating comprehensively a batsman on 106 and presumably sighting it like never before.
The next over produced a Strauss miss-hook to another well directed bouncer that landed out of reach of fine leg; another bouncer had Pietersen doing his dance of distress
It was stirring stuff. As they said of the 13th Hussars at Balaclava, 'Magnificient, but it's not war!'
One big battle in the war had been lost before Munaf began turning it on. Harbhajan, opening the bowling after tea, went around the wicket to Andrew Strauss, got his line wrong and got cut for four; followed it up with the doosra pushed through real quick and tempted the batsman into cutting again. The width was the bait, the speed the trap; Strauss bit, cut hard, and saw Dravid at slip fend the ball away as it came at his face, rather than cling on.
In one of the more bizarre decisions of the day, Dravid promptly punished the bowler by taking him out of the attack, and switched to Kumble and Pathan (Munaf, it needs mentioning, had really put his heart into that spell in hot, humid conditions and was beginning to tire), and both batsmen breathed easy.
That let off, early in the session, hurt in more ways than one. Owais Shah, whose grip on the bat handle was mentioned in the previous session report, 'retired hurt' at the tea break, to give his cramping fingers a break. A wicket early, especially that of the well set Strauss, would have had two new men at the crease.
Worse followed. Dhoni, whose keeping was high quality in Nagpur and Mohali, decided to have his bad hair day. With the score on 194/1, Kumble got one to turn enough to find the inner edge; Dhoni couldn't react in time as the ball deviated from its line. Strauss was then 111; 12 runs later, Kumble produced a googly that found Strauss's outer edge and again, Dhoni spilt the chance.
While the Indians played pass the pillow, Strauss gritted his way past his 8th Test 100, and his first since the 129 against Australia in the first innings of the 5th Test, at the Oval. Nine knocks since then had failed to produce a 50; this 100 came just when the murmurs that he was losing the plot too early and too often was getting a touch loud.
Brought back for yet another spell, Harbhajan went around the wicket again to Strauss, tossed one right up, made it turn and jump and found the edge for Dhoni to juggle and, this time, hold (England 230/2; Strauss 128/238).
And then things began to happen. Paul Collingwood mishooked Sreeshanth and the fielder at fine leg reacted late; the next ball, he found the edge of Pietersen's bat with a ball that deviated late to beat the drive and the ball flew at catching height to where second slip wasn't. Another miscued hook by Pietersen in the next over prompted the frustrated Sreeshanth into mock applause.
In the over after that -- the 81st of the innings -- Sreeshanth finally got his man; again, late reverse, just enough to find the edge as Pietersen went hard on the drive, and this time the edge went finer, to Dhoni behind the stumps to end what is arguably one of the less impressive knocks 'KP' has played in his brief career thus far (242/3; Pietersen 39/63).
The seamers first Sreeshanth, then a somewhat stiff Munaf -- came to the party as play pushed into overtime; at the other end, Harbhajan got the ball to fizz. Flintoff and Collingwood shut shop early, focusing purely on survival through to the end of the day. Flintoff broke out of defense long enough to ease Harbhajan over the long on boundary for an effortless six, as a subtle reminder of his barely sheathed power and timing.
272/3 at stumps, ending a session that produced 114 runs off 34 overs for the loss of two wickets, on balance signaled a split-session with neither side claiming a knockout. But when you pile that on top of two clear sessions won by England, day one has pretty much ended as England's day.
India has one chance to pull this back. If they can take out England around the 400 mark plus or minus 20, the home team still has the opportunity to use more than decent batting conditions to bat itself into the sort of position it enjoyed in Mohali as the match swung into the second innings.
To do that, India needs to use the first hour tomorrow to optimum advantage -- fresh seam bowlers, warmed up and firing from ball one. Fail there, and India could well end up facing a mountain and find it has misplaced its climbing spikes.
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