India knock back England with swing

England v India, First Test, Mumbai

(Stumps, Day 1) England 229-5


Chris O'Keefe

England will need a lot of steel from their lower order batting to post a competitive total against India in Chennai as the hosts battled back in the evening session with four key wickets including centurion Andrew Strauss.


Strauss played a significant part in England reaching 164-1 at tea after two strong partnerships with Alastair Cook (52) and Ian Bell (17) seemed to have put England in command. However, good bowling from Zaheer Khan after tea saw Bell and Pietersen fall quickly. Collingwood also fell cheaply albeit harshly and then with stumps in sight, Strauss chipped a top-spinner back to bowler Amit Mishra to further dent England's chances.



Strauss, without a knock in two months, played fluently throughout his innings and later admitted it was one of his better batting displays for England. The Middlesex player seemed to choose his shots carefully, gone it seemed were his loose shots of the last couple of years. His demise, owed much to a well bowled top-spinner from Mishra, as Strauss played for the spin almost playing a leading edge, nudged an easy catch back to the bowler.

Earlier Strauss shared a partnership of 118 with Cook, only for the Essex left-hander to sky an attempted sweep of Harbhajan into the grateful hands of Zaheer Khan. However, Zaheer was not given the ball himself during the afternoon session, as MS Dhoni entrusted much of the bowling to spin. It seemed a poor choice given the ball was reverse swinging.

Zaheer's dismissal of Ian Bell was a class example of swing bowling and setting the batsmen up. His first ball after tea to Bell slanted away from the batsmen. His second caught Bell on the crease in front of his stumps, plum lbw! He then set about England captain Kevin Pietersen, who seemed to create his own problems.

With the part-time bowling of Yuvraj Singh at the other end, no one expected Pietersen to struggle. However, Pietersen looked out of touch, to such an extent that his dismissal to a Zaheer short ball was on the cards. Suddenly, England's hold on proceedings was slipping only to be undermined further by a dreadful decision from umpire Billy Bowden. India's players appealed for a catch against Paul Collingwood off Harbhajan's bowling. Bowden gave Collingwood out only for replays to show that bat nowhere near the ball, which was no consolation.

England seemed to be playing for stumps when Strauss was dismissed leaving Andrew Flintoff at the crease with night-watchman James Anderson and only Matt Prior left before India get into the tail. Peter Moores will have wanted his side to make over 400 runs, indeed centurion Strauss still intimated that it was the target for tomorrow. That said, the immediate target will be 300-350 runs. England cannot rely on 2nd innings runs to help them out on a degrading pitch.

No pressure on Flintoff and the lower order, of course!