The only blemish that England had during the 1st 2 matches of the series was their opening stand. This too was sorted out by Strauss and the ever determined Cook. Cook's century was simply class apart and he knew exactly where his off stump was during this match. There was an orthodox cricket that was seen today by the English batsmen. There were patience shown all over by the openers and punished only the loose balls. Once they developed their confidence they started building a good partnership.
The 1st wicket partnership was a huge one almost scoring what 8 Indian wickets had done for the same total on day 1 - 186 in just 56 overs. Strauss had made 86 of those with 13 hits to the fence. Cook really ate the Indian curry with fast bowlers bowling about 68 overs and still did not yield any result. The 2nd days pitch was totally a batsman paradise. England made most of this. Cook began the day playing straight and reached his 3rd of this season and 4th of the year, as he moved on from his four low scores that started the series. His first fifty took 130 balls and he started marking his pace afterwards.
Yesterday, on a perfect batting pitch, Strauss invited India to bat only to see Indians startling at 111 for 7 before a 84 run partnership between Dhoni and Praveen Kumar post Indians a respectable total on the board.
I think it is time that we Indians bid adieu to the No.1 ranking that we held till date. The quality of batsmen ship and the bowlers to penetrate does not allow us to continue being No.1. Let us accept the fact that our batsmen failed to score beyond 290 runs in the series thus far that has put enormous pressure on the bowlers. It was batting that has created sensational victories, be it against Sri Lanka, Australia or South Africa. This batting line up is clearly a big cause of worry and we need to repair this damage as quickly as possible.
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