India v England, Match 2
Tuesday, January 22, 2002

I have always believed that this was going to be a well-fought and interesting series and with England's win here at Cuttack, the series is progressing along expected lines. A target of 251 was attainable and though the pitch got progressively slower, India could not use that as an excuse for their defeat.

Sachin Tendulkar's partnership with Dinesh Mongia was vital and they realised that they had to stay till the end, which is why they did not step on the accelerator as they would have liked to. This meant the pressure was not there on the England bowling and fielding. India paid the penalty when the batsmen that followed could not come to terms with the slowness of the pitch. And with the boundaries not coming, they tended to take risks in quick running and lost wickets in the bargain. And although there was some late resistance, England always looked like winning.

I'm surprised that the Indian batsmen did not notice the softness of the ball and what was very unprofessional on the part of the batsmen in the middle was the fact they did not react promptly even after instructions were sent from the dressing room to get the ball changed.

Sourav Ganguly won a toss which was important as the pitch was damp. But the 15-minute delay took a bit of the sting from the track and nullified some of India's advantage, as the outfield and the pitch dried out and the seamers could not get the movement that they expected.

Paul Collingwood is turning out to be a real find for England. He came in at a difficult stage when three wickets had fallen and he had to preserve his wicket while at the same time scoring runs as England were on the look-out for a total of 260-270, which they had to reckon with against an Indian batting that was formidable in home conditions. He was brilliant in scoring an unbeaten 71 at almost a run a ball.

While Collingwood was exceptional, Nasser Hussain was disappointing. He has a tendency to be over-aggressive and take far too many risks for a man of limited ability. He is certainly no Sachin or a Brian Lara to venture into the kind of risks that he takes, which is probably why he gets out far too often between 40 and 60. For a man who comes at No 3, a highest of 95 in 55 one-dayers is disappointing.

In Kolkata, Anil Kumble could not get his bowling rhythm and gave away far too many runs while Harbhajan Singh too looked out of sorts. But it was a much-improved bowling display here from the two spinners, especially Harbhajan who made good use of the topspinner and bowled a steady line without experimenting too much.

Ajit Agarkar bowled well, as he usually does when there is some challenge, and in the end Ganguly would have been happy restricting England to 250. But he wouldn't have been at all happy with what followed.

Sanjay Manjrekar, mainstay of the Indian batting in the late '80s and early '90s, was talking to H Natarajan.

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India won in spite of themselves

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