Visitors hope to Lord over resurgent hosts

True, even with the limited options available, England were able to comfortably romp home against Sri Lanka in the opening day-night match last night, the 44-run victory providing a major boost to the home team which had suffered losses to county sides in their practice games.

But England had the cushion of a huge total which the batsmen had put up and the bowlers were never really stretched. It is because of this that the performance of the main Indian batsmen would be very crucial. Coach John Wright talked about Indians being capable of putting the opposition under pressure and his team must prove that capability here.

England are on a high after their 2-0 victory over Sri Lanka in the Test series and the 44-run triumph yesterday and Indians would really have to fire on all cylinders to halt their winning juggernaut. With the Indian bowling line-up also not all that formidable – left-arm seamers Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra have never played against England – it will essentially boil down to a battle of the batsmen.

The Indian batsmen, including skipper Saurav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar, have helped themselves to some runs in the three practice games but their unpredictability remains a problem.

Ganguly has fond memories of Lord’s where he scored a classic century on his Test debut in 1996. He seems to have carried his fine form here from the West Indies tour as was evident from the two attacking knocks he played against county sides in the practice matches.

Tendulkar also had a match-winning knock in one of those games and so had Virender Sehwag who will continue to open the innings with the skipper. Tendulkar has already said that he would once again bat in the middle-order in this series to lend more stability to the batting line-up.

While conditions favour VVS Laxman, the stylish Hyderabad batsman is uncertain for a place in the final eleven as the Indians might be tempted to include the young brigade of Dinesh Mongia, Yuvraj Singh and Mohd Kaif in its entirety because of the huge difference they make in the quality of fielding.

In the absence of Javagal Srinath, Ajit Agarkar will suddenly find himself spearheading the Indian pace attack. Both the left-arm seamers are almost certainties for tomorrow’s game as the conditions are likely to suit their style of bowling.

But that would once again mean that only one among Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh can play. It will be a pity since both are match-winning bowlers and former England captain David Gower believes the combination can pose maximum problems to the English batsmen. (PTI)