How Collingwood & Strauss changed the equation

Tea has been a kind of elixir for bowlers so far in this Test. A spate of wickets in the final session has led to a sudden change in odds.

Tea has been a kind of elixir for bowlers so far in this Test. A spate of wickets in the final session has led to a sudden change in odds. But Day Three was different as Andrew Strauss and Paul Collingwood managed to survive the final session, a rare feat in a match that had seen four wickets fall after tea on the opening day, and three the next.

When he came in, Collingwood knew the time wasn’t ideal for someone like him, having returned home after the ODIs with 84 runs from five games and after a first-innings score of nine. “I came in today at a tight situation. We lost three quick wickets this afternoon. It takes only one slight mistake against the spinners when you first come in and you can be out before you know,” he said later.

The calming presence of Andrew Strauss at the other helped. Sensing a speck of hope with the score reading 43/3, Dhoni had gone in for the kill, throwing all that he had at the two. Ishant Sharma’s express away-going balls, Zaheer Khan’s reverse swing, and four spinners, with every imaginable turn and bounce, make for a deadly arsenal. But nothing could break the Strauss-Collingwood partnership. At close, they had taken England from their can’t-lose to can-win status with their 129-run partnership.

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Collingwood has had a long Indian association but most of his success has been in the shorter version. He did score a century in Nagpur in his debut Test, but has been more effective in the ODIs against India. The man who came to India as a 25-year-old in 2001-02 with Nasser Hussain’s team, won the Man of the Match in just the second ODI he played. Even when India toured England last year, he wasn’t impressive in the Tests but led England to an ODI-series win.

While Collingwood’s success might have come as a surprise, Strauss hasn’t put a foot wrong since he landed in Chennai for this sensitive series. The England opener’s former captain at Middlesex and now a scribe, Angus Fraser, wasn’t surprised by Strauss’s form. “He’s not really as gifted as a VVS Laxman or a Sachin Tendulkar. But he’s a competitor and he knows what he can do. He knows his limitations, plays within them and is always on the look out for punishing the bad balls,” he said.

Collingwood said Strauss’s success can be attributed to his wait-and-watch policy. “He’s really a great example for the rest of us.”