Finally, Indians back on the ball

Conjuring a win out of thin air by defending a total of 204, the Indian team displayed what it is capable of even though half their team is still finding its feet this season.

Right from the moment Nehra and Irfan Pathan began scything parabolas in the air with the new ball and picking early English wickets, India could smell a win and a chance of restoring sanity to the proceedings of the last four weeks.

The Andy Flintoff Show was off the air at the headquarters with Flintoff skipping the final game for the most important delivery of his life — the birth of his first child. Add to that Ganguly and Rahul Dravid’s defiant batting in the face of yet another surrender from their teammates and the match had the makings of an absorbing contest.

With Nehra taking the responsibility of the senior bowler and picking early wickets, the pressure on Pathan was released and it proved beneficial. England were four down with next to nothing on the board and only skipper Michael Vaughan was left to fight his slump and the bowlers.

The spin duo of Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh followed and soon England was knocked out of the contest with the scoreboard reading 62-6.

Ashley Giles forged a resistance with his skipper and threatened to turn the match England’s way but it was not to be with the huge hollow formed by the absence of Flintoff. Dinesh Kaarthick deserves special mention for not letting the big occasion overwhelm him. His stumping of Vaughan down the leg-side was brilliant and made Dravid’s eyes light up.

There were signs of flexibility and a certain level of boldness in approach in the morning when Ganguly strolled out with Laxman to open the innings. 218 minutes later when the Indian innings folded up eight of the 11 batsmen had failed to touch double figures. Yet again the India batsmen failed to bat out their 50 overs, a trend that has continued right since the Asia Cup final against Sri Lanka.

The march past band which performed during the interval were more entertaining to watch than the Indian batsmen. Ganguly, feeling the strain of recent failures, dug deep and provided the showpiece of the day with his knock. The start to the innings was a yawning crawl with Steve Harmison and Darren Gough getting the ball to do everything except talk. After he scratched around for more than half an hour, Harmison put Laxman out of his misery with a stinging yorker.

Ganguly’s involvement in run outs is averaging at least one every match. This time it was the in-form Kaif, who was promoted to number three, at the receiving end. Other than that blip Ganguly’s batting was a study in concentration and aggression. The runs flowed with as much ease as the bowlers shot down Indian wickets.

Sehwag’s poor string of scores grew longer when he offered the simplest of return catches to Ashley Giles for one, weakening his plea to the management to be eased into the middle order.

Ganguly, often criticised by the likes of Matthew Hayden of being too selfish in the limited overs version, was dismissed for 90 trying to up the tempo. His deputy Dravid wiped the cobwebs off his bat — which have found more edges than runs in this series — and played himself in patiently. His first 30 runs comprised 30 singles, the monotony broken only by his first boundary in the 39th over of the innings. Relieved of his keeping responsibilities, Dravid was determined to get some runs under his belt to prove his worth to the side on the strength of his batting alone.

Though he began uncertainly and was struggling to connect he provided his teammates a lesson in perseverance by scoring a gritty 50. But soon after that six Indian wickets fell for 34 runs and it was deja vu all over again for the Indian batting.