England Hit By Tornado; In and Out Without A Clue

England don’t know what hit them. But surely the nails are in the coffin. But the team was already ailing when it arrived at Rajkot. The diagnosis though seems unclear. It seem suspiciously a recurrent case of ‘cricket Indianitis’. Australia should know.

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England did not imagine to be hit by a sandstorm in Rajkot. And they were clearly unprepared for it. For the Indian concerns about adapting from the recently concluded Tests against Australia to the one day internationals against England, the shift was faster and simpler than Pietersen’s switch hit.

The openers have not looked back since their prolific partnering in the IPL. Playing for Delhi for years together, on the international front, Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir really announced their camaraderie with the bat prominently during the inaugural IPL season and continued in the same vein in the Tests against Australia and now in the one day internationals against England.

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Sehwag’s combative efforts of eighty-five off seventy-three was considered a mind blowing efforts in putting the visitors under duress right away. His partnership with Gambhir for 127 while the latter notched up his own individual half century was supposed to be the highlight of the show that was Indian batting.

Instead England found themselves chewing further more on their nails. India’s innings were built around partnerships though individual brilliance hogged the limelight. After the opening partnership that left England devoid of early confidence, the near century partnership between Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina pushed England further against the wall. When that eventually ended with Raina short of his half century, another began brewing dangerously for England.

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The century run stand between Yuvraj Singh and Mahendra Singh Dhoni put the game into top gear as England were resigned to admitted they knew not how to stop this bleeding of runs. Yuvraj Singh meanwhile was making magic by the buckets and Dhoni simply had to play the role of the perfect foil.

(Catch the man of the match in: Yuvraj: The Eternal Enigma )

With a target like 388, the match already threatened to turn into a one sided affair. And it should not have because the pitch was playing true, had still plenty of runs for show and England were not without their belligerence. One hoped that while victory was not a proposition for England, the Andrew Flintoff-Kevin Pietersen would inject life into the proceedings.

But it was going only one way for England – back to the pavilion. The Indian pacers were showing how it was done even on a belter of a track and the England batsmen appeared as if batting to save the Test and even then, their defense was largely absent. A nervous team does not make for a great show on the back of an innings where the host nation played only to see how many it could score, and putting the challenge of how far it could go, almost as if England did not even matter.

This was good bowling following up on some terrific batting from India. Admittedly perhaps India went a little off the pipeline once half the England side was back in the pavilion, Pietersen could not be denied his moment of glory. His aggressiveness was curbed but not denied. His glimpse of brilliance in his half century was not allowed to shine enough in the midst of the debris that was the England innings. At least he managed to avoid the ignominy as England were hastily trying to erase their dreadful tour match against a second string Mumbai side with an even bigger disastrous innings.

The trudge back began early and when last seen, the trend has not changed.

It appears a different England side that showed South Africa the door. This did not look like the same inspired England side under Kevin Pietersen. Perhaps they lost their confidence on the flight to India!

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