Finally, India has managed to win an international cricket match against England. After, the horrors of English summer where they could not pocket a single win in eleven attempts, Dhoni’s men were twelfth time lucky. Call it law of averages or the fact India were playing at the all too familiar home turf, the first ODI was a far cry from the domination with which England simply floored their opponents, on the contrary, India never looked to be in trouble as their slow bowlers spun them to a comprehensive victory.
If the previous match is taken as a reference point for the games to follow, India definitely have the upper hand while as, England may well have to do the catching up for rest of the series. The way India spin battery sans Harbhajan Singh exposed the chinks in the English armory; the visitors are in for some torment unless Cook’s men dramatically improve their mindset as well as the technique against the turning ball. England while chasing a decent target just fell apart when the India spinners came into operation, thus the biggest headache is going to be handling the slower bowlers.
On the contrary, India made the most of their strengths at Uppal; the batsmen led by skipper Dhoni powered their way to a big score. On the slow and low Hyderabad track, the English pace attack wasn’t the same well-oiled unit that had the India batsmen running for cover on the seaming tracks of England. Knowing that, Dhoni tore into what looked like on ordinary bowling line-up with Suresh Raina in the supporting act. On the whole, the Indian batting is looking good and the fans can expect few more 300 plus scores.
Among the bowlers, the spin duo of R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja were outstanding, if the carom bowler troubled the batsman with subtle variations, the latter seems to be coming of age. The spin-friendly Kotla strip will once again provide them the opportunity to consolidate their places in the playing eleven with star spinner Harbhajan battling indifferent form. The Indian pacers too did the back up job pretty well, Umesh Yadav in particular impressed with a couple of scalps to his name.
The visiting bowlers have to get their act together and unlike the first match limit the score to a gettable score so that the batsmen who have not looked in the best of touch so far do not have to chase down stiff targets. Cook was the only England batsman to make a mark while prolific scorer Jonathan Trot and Kevin Peterson struggled.
As things stand, India are favorites to go 2-0 up in the series but England retain the ability to spring a surprise.
India Squad: MS Dhoni (Capt & wk), Gautam Gambhir, Parthiv Patel, Ajinkye Rahane, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, Varun Aaron, Umesh Yadav, Vinay Kumar, S Aravind, Rahul Sharma, Manoj Tiwary, Praveen Kumar.
England Squad: Alastair Cook (Capt), Jonathan Bairstow, Ian Bell, Ravi Bopara, Scott Borthwick, Tim Bresnan, Jade Dernbach, Steven Finn, Craig Kieswetter, Stuart Meaker, Samit Patel, Kevin Pietersen, Graeme Swann, Jonathan Trott, Chris Woakes.
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