Going into the first Test of the four-match series against England at Lord’s, expectations from Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s team were sky-high. Travelling to the Caribbean, an under-strength India had won their second series in a row there against an increasingly feisty West Indies squad to underline their status as the world’s top-ranked Test team, and understandably, a great deal was expected of them in England as well.
Both sides had talked up a storm, the Englishmen hammering on and on about India’s reluctance to use the Decision Review System, and more particularly how they felt they deserved to be the best team in the world. For their part, the Indians too got in a few well-aimed jabs of their own about translating talk into performance. As it happens, it was left to the home side to land a telling first blow — and that too in a game replete with statistics, the life-blood of cricket in many ways. The 2,000th Test match, the 100th between India and England, Sachin Tendulkar’s being one shy of a century of centuries in international cricket, India coach Duncan Fletcher’s 100th Test match in that post... the list was a long and engaging one. What followed over the five days of action at cricket’s mecca in many ways lived up to the billing too. The eventual margin of 196 runs that England won by hides the fact that it was a hard-fought contest, and one in which the Indians almost gave as good as they got, though almost all the way through, England were by some distance, the more cohesive and responsive unit. The Indians were clearly hobbled in the field by Zaheer Khan’s early exit from proceedings thanks to a sore hamstring — the last of which has not been heard about, incidentally — and were from that point on, fighting a rearguard action.
The defeat also raises its own set of questions about team selection and tactics, and what the Indians now need to do to bounce back against opponents who very clearly will not easily let slip the advantage of an early win between two such tough teams. Former England captain Nasser Hussain raised a pertinent point about Zaheer’s inclusion despite his obvious lack of match practice. More to the point, seeing he did not bowl at all in the second innings of the only practice match — against county side Somerset — the Indians had ahead of the Test series, was it wise to have picked him if there was even the slightest doubt over his fitness levels? The load therefore fell on the three other regular bowlers, of whom Harbhajan Singh looks but a shadow of his former self, even though he crossed the 400-wicket mark in the series against the West Indies. Thus, with effectively two frontline bowlers, the Indians almost managed to turn the tide in the second innings — which is in itself an enormous positive, as is the form of batsmen like Rahul Dravid, Venkatasai Laxman, Suresh Raina and tyro opener Abhinav Mukund. For Dravid, it was a closure of sorts as he finally got his hundred at Lord’s, which he had so narrowly missed out on his debut 15 years ago. Still, the Indian think tank has very little time to draw up battle plans for the second Test starting Friday at Trent Bridge in Nottingham, against a team that will be sky-high on confidence. England have in fact named an unchanged squad for the second game, so the onus is now fully on Captain Cool and his coach to come up with an effective counter.