Anderson destructive spell puts India in a losing position

James Anderson ripped through the Indian top order to put the hosts in a losing position by the end of the second day’s play of the Fourth and Final Test at Nagpur. Anderson took three of the four wickets that India lost in 41 overs which included that of Sachin Tendulkar. At 87 for 4 in 41 overs, India are 243 runs behind England on a pitch that has started to take turn while indirectly aiding reverse swing to happen very early because of its abrasive nature.

Earlier in the day, India had done a decent job in bowling out England for 330 in their first innings. Leg Spinner Piyush Chawla took a career best of 4 for 69 to help the hosts to wrap up the English innings midway through the afternoon session. England resuming Day 2 at 199 for 4 were consolidated into a nice position thanks to the overnight pair of debutant Joe Root and Matt Prior. The first breakthrough of the day came when Prior (57 from 142 balls, 6x4s) was clean bowled by a straighter one from R Ashwin. Ishant Sharma got Tim Bresnan lbw for a duck which left England at 277 for 7 at lunchtime.

James Anderson produced deadly figures of 9-2-24-3 on Day 2 of the Nagpur Test

The post lunch session saw Graeme Swann join the party to score a half century while the young Joe Root missed a century on debut when he patted a return catch to Piyush Chawla. Root scored 73 from 229 balls with 4 fours. Swann got 56 (from 91 balls with 6 fours and 2 sixes) before he was lbw in an attempted reverse sweep off Chawla.

India had a poor start with the bat as Sehwag got bowled for a duck in the very first over of the innings by an Anderson inswinger. Gautam Gambhir and Cheteshwar Pujara repaired the damage before Swann got a lucky bat pad decision in his favour. Pujara (26) was wrongly given caught at short leg after a jumping off break struck his elbow and taken by the diving Ian Bell. Next man in was Sachin Tendulkar and his struggles against Monty Panesar continued. However, it was James Anderson who would get Tendulkar out with a short of length ball that stayed low, took an inside edge to rattle the stumps. It was the usual dramatic crouching low from Tendulkar (2) after getting bowled, a picture that the fans have been bored of watching again and again.  Incidentally this is the ninth time that Anderson had dismissed Sachin in his career. In the same spell, Anderson went onto have Gambhir (37) caught behind in a loose drive on the up to reduce India to 71 for 4.

There was no further damage before stumps with Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni surviving for the day and hoping to do something special tomorrow to save their places in the Indian test team.