Humiliation is complete,No.1 crown lost

By lunch time,one man was smiling even more broadly,the other was even more cross.

Well before the start of play,the steward at the stadium gate was joking about his faith in the Indian batsmen,who he said would ensure he has a half-day today. Not far,at a betting shop,a bookmaker was moaning about the Indian top orders repeated failures in the series,which made the results predictable and ruined his business.

By lunch time,one man was smiling even more broadly,the other was even more cross. For the sixth time in three Tests,Indias batting had collapsed.

With the score 116/6 after the first session,Edgbaston waited to see where this defeat would figure in the list of Indias worst-ever defeats. Skipper M S Dhoni 74 not out and Praveen Kumar 40 threw their bats around at the end,and the margin was eventually an innings and 242 runs. It was third on the dubious list,and Indias heaviest since 1974,when Ajit Wadekars side was all out for 42 in the second innings at Lords,and was thrammed by an innings and 285 runs.

England waltzed to the top of the Test ranking,their first time at No. 1 since the rankings came into being in 2003 something Andrew Strauss said had been his teams goal for a long time. England have been awesome since May 2009,winning 19 Tests out of 30 and losing just four. The worlds top three wicket-takers in this period have been all Englishmen Anderson,Swann and Broad.

The Indian scorecard at the end showed Dhoni unbeaten,but as he walked off the field,he looked every bit the beaten captain. 0-3 today gave England the series,and should it become 0-4 at the Oval,India will slip from No. 2 to No. 3 in the ICC Test rankings.

The 0-3 scoreline also means India now stand at the threshold of their first Test series whitewash in over a decade. The last time India came home after such a disaster was from Australia in 1999-2000. That humiliation of Sachin Tendulkars side by Steve Waughs Australians kicked off a decade in which India,on the strength of their batsmen,won abroad,became the top-ranked Test side,and eventually won the World Cup.

Watching the abject surrender of the jaded and aging side today,the end of Indias golden era didnt seem like a doomsday prediction too far away to be believable.

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Like so often in this series,the day started with hope based on the past records of the big names in the side. India were 35/1,451 in arrears,and needed to bat for two full days to save the game. But with Gautam Gambhir,Rahul Dravid,Sachin Tendulkar and V V S Laxman to bat,it was a task not beyond them. Such feats have been achieved before.

Not today,though. Gambhir,who once batted 11 hours in New Zealand,lasted just one ball. Dravid and V V S had famously batted for three full sessions to win a monumental game against the Invincible Aussies; today they didnt last even half a session. And the worlds wait for Tendulkars 100th hundred continued. He looked good but wasnt good enough.

Except for Tendulkar who was run out all the other top-order batsmen fell to James Anderson. The reason for the collapse was familiar: quality swing bowling,and a bit of misfortune.

At lunch,when Dhoni and Amit Mishra were walking to the dressing room,former England captain Mike Gatting was standing with a group of grown-ups dressed like birds. Gatting was honouring the winners of the fancy dress competition that the highly enterprising organisers had arranged on the sidelines of this Test. Also in contention were a group of men posing as Indias top-order batsmen.