Tag IndvEng-2011 2nd-test-2011

123 days ago, whole of India was out on street, whole night, celebrating as a whole. today, 1st August 2011, that same whole was broken into pieces and none of them were ready to admit they still believe in their team that made them dance breathlessly very, very recently..

We, at itsonlycricket, don't believe in criticism, so if you're looking for a blasting article on how poorly India lost this second test at Trent Bridge, browse around. We'll just say visitor's performance can only improve in remaining two tests. In following, story explains how well England played and raised a strong claim for no.1 test team.

The scores
England 221/10 and 544/10.
India 288/10 and 158 allout.
Full scorecard : 2nd test, 2011.

Begining at the begining, it was a great toss to win for usually unlucky MS Dhoni with cloud cover overhead and a fresh juicy pitch to play on and his seamers did the job too to an extent, reducing home team to 124 for 8 wickets but then onwards, game took a u-turn and ended up being one dimentional. Stuart Broad, high on confidence having rediscovered his bowling in 1st test at Lord's, led the trasformation with his 64, adding 73 valuable runs with Graeme Swann, stretching his team past 200 run total.

James Anderson got rid of young Abhinav Mukund off the first ball of the innings to salvage some more for home team by the time stumps were called.

Day two began tilted towards Indians as overnight batters Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman in particular stroked the ball nicely but Bresnan bowled back to back jaffa's to dismiss the latter. Sachin Tendulkar appeared in mood but lacked application playing a backfoot drive while Suresh Raina was once again pampered with bouncers. Yuvraj Singh was surprize breath of fresh air as he put on 128 runs with Dravid but once again, Stuart Broad broke the match up, claiming the first hat-trick by an English bowler against India in test cricket (Second wicket, Harbhajan Singh, had got a huge edge onto his pads but lbw decisions weren't allowed to be reviewed in this game ). Indians lost last 6 wickets for just 21 runs, restricting themselves to a moderate lead of 67 when they should have gone two centuries ahead.

At this juncture, match may have appeared equal on scoreboard but England had already smelled blood and the vampire in them was now desperate to fly out.

England began day 3 a wicket down and even captain Andrew Strauss failed to raise a score but Ian Bell's classical self had every answer to whatever visitors threw at him. Kevin Pietersen, in his usual stylish self shuffling to off-side, started the onslought reigning champions had no answers to. With Harbhajan Singh unable to bowl thanks to abdominal strain, Bell first put on 162 runs with Pietersen and then Eoin Morgan assisted him for another 104 runs. Bell completed his century (his first against India, 15th in career, 1st at no.3), survived a bizarre run out and by the time he departed stage was set for even further acceleration that Matt Prior and Tim Bresnan did admirably well, collecting 185 runs in last session from only 35 overs. A total of 417 runs were scored by England on third day.

Now onwards, it was time for home team to drive home the advantage.

On day four, England dominance glared on Indians who bowled short and wide and Tim Bresnan almost notched up a century. Stuart Broad once again made the day for home team, cracking 44 runs off just 32 balls and then leading the pace attack once England set a target of 478.

With James Anderson, Broad bowled back to back lethal deliveries that broke Indian backs and they slipped to 6 wickets for 55 runs. Sachin Tendulkar, looking angry, made a useless half century as England wrapped up the game by 319 run margin.

This is now the new record of biggest winning margin for a team that conceded lead in first innings of a test match!

England now have taken 2-0 lead in this 4 test match series with 2 games to go but they can't relax as they've to win the series 3-1 or 4-0 to be new world no.1 in test cricket. India, on other hand, as said earlier, can only improve from here on.