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India vs England - 3rd test, Mumbai 2006.Filed under
Article
One day before the test match
English Camp :- England's sick list has a new name - Steve Harmison who suffered a shin injury just one day before the 3rd and last test at the Wankhede Stadium - Mumbai, starting 18th of March. And when we look at the record of Mumbai pitch over the y  ears, it may not be as a bigger loss
for England team as seamers don't have such a great record here... but
one thing is for sure - Virendra Sehwag will be most happy. Hasmison is
a tall bowler and always get awkward bounce, which constantly troubled
Sehwag. With his out and probably Shaun Udal and James Anderson coming
in place of Liam Plunkett, the English bowling attack looks ideal for
Indian batsmen.. I hope they come up with some good changes for the
final test.. the test they HAVE TO WIN!!Indian camp :- Indian camp is very stable and confident. Rahul Dravid will be completing 100 test matches at Wankhede tomorrow and looking at his test record so far, he look the most impressive batsmen in the world of cricket right  now... and know what, Mahendra Singh Dhoni will be seen
in new hair colour from now on. He didn't cut his hair, but has decided
to change the colour to black... Lets just hope that this change
doesn't bring any change in his batting style at least!!Day 1 The whole day belonged to England. Rahul Dravid won the toss for the first time in the series but somehow he decided to bowl first on a wicket that didn't had much for the seam bowlers.. anways, England had dropped their young opener - Alastair Cook and brought in Owais Shah. Shah is another player with Indian relations and in his batting, it was clear that he had some genes as well. He was playing the spinners right at the last moment and formed a very good foil for Andrew Strauss who made a very good and confident century at the other end. These two batsmen gave England the early edge into the game and towards the end of the day - although England lost couple of wickets through some good bowling by Sreesanth, and Owais Shah went "retired hurt" after suffering cramps in his hands due to dehydration, it was a clear England's day. They made 270 confident runs and looked very promising for a big first innings score in the Mumbai test. Day 2  Some early wickets is what Indians were hoping for at the start of the day 2 but they got only the half wickets... I mean bowlers got the edges but there was no one with safe hands... Catches were dropped by Dravid, Yuvraj, Kumble and many others and England consolidated their total in the first session. Then came Sreesanth again... Sreesanth has been the best bowler in the Indian ranks till date.. and apart from the tussle he had with Owais Shah, Sreesanth was in control. What really happened between the two youngsters was nothing new for cricket. Sreesanth was bowling his heart out and Owasis Shah managed to survive a close appeal. Then Shah took off for a easy single and said something to Sreesath on his way to the non striking end on day 2 of this mumbai test. After that, Munaf Patel came back to bowl his yorkers (which he is very good at) and then Mumaf and Owais Shah were involved in some conversations that one don't really need to listen in order to understand... it was young blood between Owasis Shah, Sreesath and Munaf Patel.. thats all!!
 But importantly, Indians did managed to pull things back by dismissing England for exactly 400 runs - thanks to some good bowling and great catching in the post-lunch session but they gave the advantage back by losing 3 wickets very cheaply... I see a problem in Indian batting order right now. Let me discuss it with you...The Problem :- Sehwag is an attacking batsman. So either he will get out or run away with the game. I am sure none of Indian fan will have a problem with the second case but the first case means that Jaffer and Dravid are involved in a partnership... I feel these two batsmen have way tooo correct batting style and are way tooo slow scorers that even when there is no pressure, they manage to build it, and allows the oposition to feel they are dominating, when they really aren't.. I feel thats what happened at Nagpur and the same happened today on the day two of this Mumbai test.. Any sugesstions?? Day 3. An average day to start with. Yuvraj played a bad shot - fishing out side off stump way too early in the day and then Dravid got out after being given a chance just 3 balls ago. Then it was left to Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Irfan Pathan to pull things back for India on Day 3 of this Mumbai test. England were 10-12 overs short of the New Ball so they decided to bowl spinners from both the ends and that allowed Pathan and Dhoni to get settled. Then Pathan got out - trying to hit Shaun Udal out of the ground and then in came Anil Kumble and the New ball..  Dhoni was hit on the helmet by flintoff earlier in the day and he had decided to hit back to flintoff this time. The first over of flintoff read - 4 4 4 W 0 0. Mahendra Singh Dhoni was given out by the third umpire K Hari Haran. What exactly happened was Dhoni, after hitting flintoff for a hattrick of fours, tried to sneek in a single to Mid wicket from where the fielder - James Andreson hit the stumps directly.. The had not hit the stumps but had kissed it so the bails too quite a bit of time to dislocate from the stumps. The replays were not clearly suggesting that the bails are off as Dhoni was trying to get back into the crease. As the blow from the ball was very light, and very sideways, the bails were on the stumps longer than they usually are when the ball hits the wickets.. Dhoni was given out by the third umpire when there were enough doubts for him to give Dhoni " the benifit of doubt ". The run out rule clearly tells that bail should be completely off the stumps and batsman out of the crease to be adjudged runout. But on this day 3 of mumbai test, Dhoni was very nearly had made his ground which wasn't thought by the third Umpire..A mistake by the third umpire to say the least!!
Day 4. Everyone expected England to make some quick runs in their second innings when they took a healthy lead of 121 runs in the first innings... but that wasn't the case. England lost two early wickets on the third day itself and on day 4, they came out defending the ball. They score at 2 runs per over.. and kept on losing wickets at a regular interval of time.
England batted till the last hour of Day 4 and gave India to bat a Maximum of 16 over that remained in the day. They set a winning target of 313 for the Indians which looked quite tough but not at all out of range. Indians had a problem that Virendra Sehwag was out of the field for whole of England second innings and thats why he couldn't open the batting for India. In fact, as the rule states - Sehwag couldn't bat till 5th Indian wicket goes down or till the time he was out of the field, in this 3rd test match at Mumbai. India opened with Irfan Pathan and Wasim Jaffer and the former looked positive. Irfan wanted to make runs but was unlucky to misstime a full toss from James Anderson and lost his off stump. Then In came Anil Kumble. As just 4-5 overs were remaining in the days play, A night watchman in Anil Kumble was sent in by the Indians and that worked all right.. so that meant India needed 290 more runs on the last day of Mumbai pitch and England needed 9 wickets to level the series and hold on to their second position in ICC test ranking. Day 5. Related ArticlesArticle
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