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India break their Mohali duck
Wisden CricInfo staff - December 3, 2001
This was India's first win in four attempts at the Punjab Cricket Association ground at Mohali. They lost the first Test played there, to West Indies in 1994-95, and drew with Sri Lanka in 1997-98 and New Zealand in 1999-2000.
Anil Kumble took five or more wickets in an innings for only the second time in a Test against England. His 6 for 64 at Chennai in 1992-93 remain his best figures against them. Kumble took more wickets on the fourth day than he managed in the entire 1996 series in England, when he took 5 for 334 in 147 overs.
Kumble and Harbhajan Singh continued their fine home form - both average almost half with the ball on Indian pitches compared to overseas ones. In 32 home Tests Kumble has taken 183 wickets at 21.17, but 106 at 39.90 in 32 matches overseas. Harbhajan has now taken 52 wickets at 22.31 in nine home Tests - and 23 at 43.39 in nine matches outside India.
England again pleased the local treasurer by failing to reach the second new ball in either innings - they were bowled out in 76.3 and 77.4 overs. Only twice in last summer's Ashes series did Steve Waugh have to call for the new ball - in the first innings at Headingley and again at The Oval.
Richard Dawson is the youngest English spinner ever to take four wickets in a Test innings. Dawson, who took 4 for 134 at Mohali today – he might have had seven wickets if he had had more assistance from his fielders – turned 21 on August 4. All the other England bowlers who took four or more wickets in a Test innings before their 22nd birthdays were either older than Dawson, in the case of spinners Pat Pocock and Wilfred Rhodes, or fast bowlers: Alex Tudor, Phil DeFreitas, Neil Foster, Norman Cowans, Graham Dilley (twice), Ian Botham (twice), Alan Ward, Pat Pocock, Fred Trueman (five times), Brian Statham, Bill Voce (four times), Frank Foster (twice), John Crawford (three times), Wilfred Rhodes and George Lohmann (twice). Mind you, Harbhajan Singh's also 21, and he's taken 32 wickets in three Tests against Australia, and 75 wickets in all so far ...
Deep Dasgupta, who was playing in his third match, made his first Test century. His only other half-century was 63 against South Africa at Port Elizabeth, in his previous match. Only four other Indian wicketkeepers have scored Test centuries: Farokh Engineer, Syed Kirmani and Budhi Kunderan, who each made two, and Nayan Mongia (one).
Harbhajan Singh, 21, took his fifth five-wicket haul, in his 18th Test. The bad news for England is that in the other two matches in which he took five wickets in the first innings, he did likewise in the second – both against Australia earlier this year.
Tinu Yohannan took the wicket of Mark Butcher with his fourth ball in Test cricket. Twelve players have managed a wicket with their first ball in Tests, most recently Nilesh Kulkarni of India, who dismissed Sri Lanka's Marvan Atapattu in Colombo in 1997-98. Yohannan probably won't want to know that Kulkarni finished that innings with 1 for 195, and Sri Lanka with the Test-record 952 for 6.
Yohannan is one of five men who made their Test debuts in this match. Iqbal Siddiqui and Sanjay Bangar were also playing in their first Tests, as were Richard Dawson and James Foster for England. The five main seamers in this match - Yohannan, Siddiqui, Bangar, Jimmy Ormond and Matthew Hoggard - shared just three Test caps. Yohannan is the first player from the southern state of Kerala to play for India.
Nasser Hussain lost the toss for the tenth time in a row. He last won at Lahore in December 2000, and he has also lost 15 out of 16 in Tests.
The second-wicket partnership of 125 between Marcus Trescothick and Nasser Hussain was a new record for Tests at Mohali. The previous record was 104, by Marvan Atapattu and Roshan Mahanama for Sri Lanka v India in 1997-98, in the second of the three previous Tests at Mohali.
This was the first time for 26 Tests that England had taken the field without Mike Atherton, Alec Stewart, Andy Caddick and Darren Gough, the only four players to have appeared in the previous 25 matches (Duncan Fletcher's entire reign).
© Wisden CricInfo Ltd
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