Related Links : India’s Tour of England 2011 : England Players : India Players : Scorecard of 4th Npower Test at Edgbaston
India have their backs to their wall in the final Test with 7 wickets in hand to battle it out for a draw on the final day’s play. The visitors have lost three big wickets including that of Dravid and Laxman which has left England in a highly favourable position to inflict a cleansweep 4-0. One thing that could favour India is that they have got the overall deficit down to 162 runs. Earlier in the day, Rahul Dravid went onto score a heroic unbeaten 146 in India’s first innings to kill some valuable time in the match. India for the first time posted 300 in the series but couldn’t prevent the follow on.
Tale of the Morning Session :
The visitors were in a deep mess at 103 for 5 in 33 overs going into Day 4 with nothing big expected from the overnight pair of Rahul Dravid (57*) and Skipper MS Dhoni (5*). However, the overnight pair batted comfortably to defy the English bowling until the 46th over when MS Dhoni (17 from 50 balls) was forced to edge a reversing outswinger from Anderson. At 137 for 6, Amit Mishra joined Rahul Dravid and the former showed lots of grit to put up a stubborn resistance.
Mishra (38*) along with Dravid (109*) saw through the morning session to have India at 218 for 6 in 66 overs. Dravid registered a superb 35th Test century which was his third ton on this tour!
Tale of the Afternoon Session :
There was an early breakthrough for England after Lunch when Amit Mishra’s miscued pull shott to a rising delivery from Tim Bresnan was brilliantly caught by a diving Ian Bell to his right at short backward squareleg. Mishra lasted 77 balls to score 43 with 6 fours and a six in a fighting stand of 87 with Dravid which lasted around 24 overs.
After Mishra’s exit, an unfit Gautam Gambhir walked in at no.9 courageously to join Dravid. Gambhir was still suffering from a mild concussion and was having a blurred eye sight. He was in no position to run for anything more than a single! Still, Gambhir was determined to fight it out and India batted out another 18 overs before they lost their next wicket. Gambhir was dismissed by a wicked short ball from Broad which he fended off to the slips to end a gutsy stay of 62 balls in which he got 10.
Rahul Dravid was lucky to get another fighting partnership, this time from no.10 RP Singh who made a decent cameo of 25 from 23 balls with 5 fours before he dabbed a rising delivery from Bresnan to third slip in the 94th over. Last man Sreesanth lasted only two deliveries before he drove Bresnan straight into the hands of cover. India got bowled out for 300 in 94 overs with Rahul Dravid remaining unconquered on 146* (from 266 balls with 20 fours).
India as expected was asked to follow on and Dravid walked again to bat that too just after 10 minutes! His partner Virender Sehwag showed some good discipline to ensure that his side went to Tea at 25 for 0 in 6 overs.
Tale of the Final Session :
India had 29 more overs to bat through in the final session and were soon on the backfoot when Rahul Dravid was controversially given caught bat pad after a review taken by England. Just few minutes before that Dravid had reversed a bat pad decision in his favour using a review. In the 13th over, he was given not out by Umpire Rod Tucker when he seemed to have got an inside edge onto the pad in a forward defence to Swann which was taken at short leg. England took the review and although Hotspot didn’t pick any inside edge and one of the replays showing that the ball turned enough to miss the inside edge, it was still given out by the third Umpire. Dravid had to depart with a 32-ball 13.
In the 19th over, Virender Sehwag (33 from 67 balls with 5 fours) got magically bowled through the gate by a classical well flighted and turning off break from Swann to defeat an inside out cover drive leaving India at 64 for 2. VVS Laxman (24 from 42 balls with 4 fours) was the next to fall in the 30th over when he was bowled by a lovely full delivery from Anderson that angled in but held its line to beat the closed face blade and knock out the off stump.
Amit Mishra who was sent in as the night watchman instead of Ishant Sharma did a good job to bat out 18 balls for his 8* to help Tendulkar (35* from 51 balls with 5 fours) to see through the day’s play. India finished at 129 for 3 in 35 overs and have an opportunity of saving the game by forcing England to bat again should they get another 250 runs atleast.