England 474/8d, 5/0 - India 286
England lead by 193 runs
What an absolutely cracking day of Test cricket. Conditions were good for batting, bit of cloud and therefore the traditional Lord’s swing but India, Dravid excepted, made it look very hard work. It wasn’t, it was a batting pitch.
There was no fairytale for Tendulkar. I never really expected there to be. This is real life not Disneyland and there’s very rarely a fairytale either on or off the pitch. I guess there’s always the second innings but that looks unlikely.
The Good
- Stuart Broad. He’s back. Denied a 5 fer by a couple of dropped slip catches. But he was back to the Broad we know from the Oval 09. He bowled full and straight and had a magic magic spell. Now we’ve got rid of this ridiculous “enforcer” idea he is free to bowl how we know he can. I don’t even know where the silly enforcer thing came from. The media say it wasn’t them and the England camp say they never gave him that role. But he showed what we already knew – pitch it up and the wickets will come. He did, of course, get the wicket of Kumar with the short ball. The short ball is a vital piece of a fast bowler’s armoury but it’s best used, as Broad showed today, as a surprise or against the tailenders who just don’t know how to cope with it. I’ve always said that Broad is immensely talent but I’ll hold my hands up – I wouldn’t have picked him for this Test – I was wrong.
- Raoul Dravid. With all the Sachin hype, Dravid could bat without too much pressure although he did have to get his side out of the proverbial mairde. He played a wonderful innings. He was given a bit of luck but even the very best batsmen rely on a bit of luck sometimes. He played a wonderful range of shots. So often under the radar, Dravid was masterful today. It’s just a shame that his innings hasn’t let India in a stronger position – they’re still on the racks.
The Bad
- Stuart Broad would have had got on to the honours board if Strauss and Swann has held on to, what looked like, 2 pretty regulation slip catches. We shouldn’t crucify them too much, these things happen and on the whole our slip cordon is one of the best in the world. Thankfully, the Laxman drop didn’t prove too costly. The Dravid drop by Swann – well Swanny needs to be buying Broad a few beers I think. If we’d held those two it’s entirely possible India wouldn’t have reached the follow-on score. I’m not completely sure that Strauss would have enforced that follow-on though.
The Ugly
- Not to take anything away from some good bowling but the shots played by Suresh Raina and Harbhajan Singh were nothing short of ugly. We’re not just talking a little unattractive, we’re talking full on Wayne Rooney ugly.
England go into day 4 in a very strong position. It’ll be interesting to see if they play it positively and try to pile on a big score by Tea and then declare or just bat and bat all day. Strauss does have a tendency to be negative but yesterday’s declaration came as a bit of a pleasant surprise to me so perhaps I’m being harsh. After what we’ve seen today, we have to back our bowlers to take the 10 Indian wickets pretty cheaply.
