And there’s stumps.
Even if England fall over for another 30-40 runs, a 200 lead is not going to be easy to get here for India. Hard to see an Indian win.
If England can avoid the collapse tomorrow morning, then this thing is done and dusted. Draw the favourite. India will have to do something pretty special to win if England can get to lunch.
They’ve done that all right - Trott and Bell still there with a hundred for one and every chance of one for the other.
They are still playing out in Nagpur but it is over. At 274-3, England have enough runs and used enough time to draw this Test match barring the most miraculous of comebacks.
Credit where due, I have been very down on Ian Bell but he needed to come in and perform in this last innings. If he’d got out early, he could have exposed Root to a lot of pressure and allowed India back into the game. This has been a good knock and should keep him his place in the side. Hopefully he is turning a corner. Trott hasn’t looked in great nick either, so both these innings have been timely, both for the team and personally.
Since the debacle in Ahmedabad, England have looked a much better unit. More precise ideas of what they are going to do with bat in hand, better balanced bowling attack, put pressure on in the field (both with their own work and running between the wickets to cause Indian fielders pressure). It has been a pretty decent performance since then.
I might have said this before on another thread but cricket is too small an international game for traditional powers to be poor for too long. It makes for uncompetitive games. When that power is India, it’s a real problem, as it is the financial powerhouse of the game. Hopefully, they will look into remodeling their side and get their mojo back in the 5 day game. We need them to be competitive for the sake of Test cricket (as we need SA, Aus and at least one of Pak, WI and SL/NZ to be good too). Great win for England but can’t help but feel that this Indian side is below what they’d expect.
Kudos to England on their first test series win in India in many years. It’s a rare achievement, and they deserve it, they’ve been the better side. The quality of the Indian team really has plummeted from when we were ranked 1 in tests and won the world cup. The retirement of Laxman and Dravid and the poor form of Tendulkar, Sehwag and Khan have hurt us. I agree with Cumbrian in that I hope we become competitive again soon, particularly in Test cricket. It really is the only form of the game that retains any interest for me, given how frequent and meaningless all the other fixtures have become.
Great stuff, it wasn’t a barnstorming last test but then the pitch dictated slow scoring and had no real demons.
There was a huge amount of correspondence to TMS early yesterday bemoaning that England weren’t pushing on. I think that was hugely short-sighted. At no point was this a free-scoring pitch. Sure by being negative and scoring slowly England ran the risk of copping a bad ball with not much on the scoreboard but to be honest, I reckoned their approach was spot on. Tire the bowlers, deaden the ball, wear them down, occupy the crease and run the clock down. I think it was a thoughtful and mature 2nd innings (I’m not being wise after the event here I said as much in an e-mail to TMS but it didn’t get read out I don’t think)
Congrats England for the series win!! Almost all of your players were up to the mark, captain Cook and Anderson were specially brilliant . English team has improved a lot after loss to Pakistan in UAE.
India on the other hand, sucked massively. very very uninspiring cricket. I wish non-performers (read Tendulkar) get dropped. If the selectors are dishonest enough to pick him for Australia series in Feb-March 2013, it will be difficult for me to follow that series. I can not emphasize enough but some deserving youngster needs to get picked in place of Tendulkar coz he is hurting India’s chances big time…
Bring on Rahane. He had looked good from what little I have seen of him and he should get an extended run in the Indian side (i.e. even if he struggles in Australia, that shouldn’t be a comment on his long term viability).
right. infact he should have been picked over raina and yuvraj who clearly dont have the game for test cricket. one of the many reasons why people are fed up with the entire setup (coach, captain, selectors, bcci)…:mad:
This is an opinion I’ve heard before, and I’m not sure how valid it actually is. There will always be strong teams and weak teams, and which they are will rotate around as teams peak and trough. The game survived England’s dreadful run in the 90s, and South Africa weren’t even playing during the 80s. It’ll survive a period of Indian transition.
In the 80s and 90s, India had not yet started to really tap their monetary potential and we didn’t have T20 to cream money, interest and (potentially) talent from the test arena. I think it more of a concern now than ever if we don’t have interesting games of test cricket. Before, it actually was the pinnacle so wasn’t going anywhere. Now? Not so sure about that. Definitely not in the long term at least.
I’m cautiously optimistic. Most serious Indian fans recognise test cricket as being important. The only problem is no one really wants to watch it. We follow it on cricinfo for the most part, and the boards don’t get any revenue there. I think the best idea to generate interest in test cricket is the championship that was proposed - where every test result counts for points towards declaring a champion every once in two or three years. That could really drum up more interest.
Indeed, therein lies the problem.
I think if there was a championship, it might stir up some interest in India - the prospect of having a trophy at the end of it seemed to capture the mood when they won they World T20 prior to the introduction of the IPL and that (plus home advantage) worked for them in the World Cup.
I’m not Indian nor do I live there though, so I wouldn’t presume to say what will work for them in terms of generating interest. That said, pitches like the one in Nagpur can’t be helping right? Come what may, India needed to win that match, so a result wicket should have been prepared and that might well have helped engage people in, at least, that specific game, as stuff would have happened (Wickets tumbling! Runs being scored! Excitement! The game on the line!).
I think that’s absolutely right. But it’s also a question of not having the time to watch, rather than lacking the desire. My grandfather, after he retired, followed every ball of every match that he could. It’s a bit trickier with a full-time job, which explains the army of fans tuning into Cricinfo and TMS. I’d happily watch more Test cricket if I had the time.
I have to disagree with you on the Test championship - I’m not sure that having a points-based result over 2-3 years will sustain enough momentum for a large number of people to become interested. Will it appeal to people who already follow and enjoy the longer format? I think so. I just don’t see how it will entice fans away from 20/20 and ODIs.
What are ticket prices like for the Tests, especially relative to the population’s average wage? What you’ve said here makes an awful lot of sense and is obviously the case in the UK too - but we’re selling the grounds out for the first 4 days of every test months in advance and people complain that they can’t get tickets - which doesn’t seem to be the case in India.
Advertising revenue for Tests in this country will be quite low - and goes to the TV channel who sells it in any case - but the money flows into the game because the channels (particularly Sky in the UK) need the cricket to attract subscriptions to their service. As a result, the viewing figures and the ad revenue are not a great indicator of the financial worth of the game, nor really of the interest - the fact that the grounds in England probably need to be bigger to accommodate people who want to watch Tests is probably a better indicator of interest.
Of course, if you can’t afford to watch the Tests and the ODIs/T20s are cheaper, that might be why the grounds are seemingly more empty.
Apologies Truthseeker- I missed this.
I have no idea why these guys break down or when they will be back. We have also lost Josh Hazlewood, Ryan Harris is unable to have a piss without hurting himself and now Hilfenhouse has been injured in this match. Compare that to someone like McGrath who only injured himself tripping over cricket balls and it is rather absurd.
There is a school of thought that the bowlers are spending far too much time in the gym rather than in the pursuit of more natural fitness regimes- such as running or even bowling. People like Geoff Lawson say that chiropractors need to be used more often.
I don’t know- I think some players such as Watson are soft. There is also the thought that too much cricket is played but I find that a bit hard to swallow when you look at the schedules for the teams of years gone by.
(And I won’t even get started on how we used to have 8 ball overs 
)
No Problems Cicero.
the likes of Cummins, Starc and Pattinson look like putting their absolute everything for every ball. they are young and injury prone, With age, they may learn to manage their bodies better to last test matches.
Siddle, Harris, Johnson and Hilfenhouse are a bit more mature, so I’d expect them to get injured less often.
But surely, seeing fast bowlers break down these days so often(India has had a fair share in Zaheer, Yadav, Ishant, Aaron, Nehra etc.), one must acknowledge how great Mcgrath, Akram etc were and Steyn is these days to play so many test matches without breaking down…
I suppose the great Windies teams used to bowl the opposition out so quickly that they didn’t do a lot of work :). They were a fantastic unit for quite a few years- and the best spearhead I can imagine (RSA had some superb bowlers in the wilderness years). However, I will add there will always be soft bowlers and those who never seen to suffer and I am not convinced physique has a great deal to do with it.
You’re right of course, that the time it takes is not suitable. Maybe the day-night tests will make a difference? Although I’m ambivalent about the idea. On the test championship - I just think it’s the best option they have, not that it’ll necessarily bring in the T20 kind of followers. It’ll give each test and series more consequence - Do we move up in the championship? Are we in the running? How many tests will we have to win this series to move up a spot. Just create a bit of a buzz y’know? The rankings sort of do that, but there’s no real end point to them - Ok, we’re not rank 1 now, maybe we will be again next year, who knows how these things work anyway, who cares.
A world cup over two years, with a defined end point, maybe a 5 match series between the top two teams to decide the winner. I think that may invest test matches with more consequence in the public mind than they have now.
I think the tickets are quite cheap, relative to purchasing power. I think part of the reason that most test matches aren’t well attended is that the grounds are not a pleasant experience. For one thing, most of the year, most places in India, the weather is not conducive to having a good time out of doors. I think most Indian stadiums are not comfortable, clean or convenient. Parking’s a mess, getting in is troublesome, seats aren’t comfortable, drinking isn’t allowed (and if it were, I may be worried about crowd behaviour). The view of most people, at least most people I know, is that the best seat in the house is the one in your house. Which is why the BCCI makes a fuck ton of money from broadcasting rights.
A lot of work would need to be done to the future tours program to make something like this a reality. At the moment, teams don’t play all other teams equally - something that would likely need to happen to make a test championship with a crowned winner a reality.
They tried it out with the Asian Test Championship a few years back, as a precursor to a full test championship, but even with only 4 teams involved they ran into major schedule clogging. I think the current system is a good one, actually - being number one is something to aim for and, once you’re there, staying number one is tough. It does eliminate “dead rubbers”, as each game won contributes to your team’s score.