Related Link : India’s tour of England
The Indian bowling’s lack of ability in finishing off the tail was yet again exposed, this time in the 3-day match against England Lions at Chelmsford. From a position of 185 for 6, the homeside went onto make 379 and are still unfinished with 10 more overs to bat for in the second day’s play in their first innings. They still have two wickets left and the man who has badly hurt the Indian confidence, Tim Bresnan is still unconquered with only his second first class hundred.
Tim Bresnan could be remembered more as a burly fast bowler who was taken to the cleaners by the Sri Lankans in 2006. He is also remembered for accidentally spiking England’s strike bowler Matthew Hoggard ruling him out of a Test Match against Pakistan. But yesterday he made news by frustrating the Indians with a hundred despite coming as low as no.8! The one good thing that India could do having asked to field first was to keep the confidence level of Andrew Strauss low ahead of the Test Series. The Lion’s Captain and England’s opener, Strauss was cleaned up by a nice pitched up delivery from Zaheer Khan to be out for a struggling 1 from 17 balls. The Indians were being led by Sachin Tendulkar with Rahul Dravid giving his calf muscle some recovery time. The bowling attack had just Sreesanth in common from the last game against Sussex. Anil Kumble was also given a break giving Ramesh Powar an opportunity. Ishant Sharma was given the chance as well as RP Singh and Ranadeb Bose made way for him and Zaheer Khan.
After the early wicket of Strauss, Indians had to work hard for their wickets as opening batsman Joe Denly, all of just 21 years, kept them at bay. Denly scored his runs at a brisk rate and in the 30th over itself got 83 from 90 before getting foxed in the air by the tempting Ramesh Powar. Denly punished the Indian bowling with 16 fours. The Lions looked solid at 142 for 3, but were reduced to 185 for 6 with Zaheer Khan providing a couple of breaks. Powar and Tendulkar later chipped in with a wicket each to have Lions at 225 for 7. This was the time when the Indians thought Zaheer Khan needed lot of rest ahead of the Test Matches. It worked in the homeside’s favour and helped Bresnan put on an incredible stand with the left handed Stuart Broad. The pair put on as many as 129 runs for the 8th wicket! Broad helped himself to a fifty before he had got dismissed finally by Sreesanth. The Indians helped the Lions to get these runs courtesy of some uninspired bowling and fielding. Ishant Sharma was the most disappointing of all the bowlers as he overstepped 15 times in his 12 overs! Tendulkar used seven bowlers including himself, Sourav Ganguly and Yuvraj Singh. At stumps on the opening day’s play, England Lions are at 379 for 8. Bresnan has got 116 from 156 balls with 16 fours and a six.
England Lions 379 for 8 in 90 Overs (Tim Bresnan 116* Joe Denly 83 Stuart Broad 50 Ravi Bopara 29, Zaheer Khan 3/99 Sreesanth 2/62 Ramesh Powar 2/96 Sachin Tendulkar 1/24) Vs Indians at County Ground, Chelmsford