India will take sustenance from the fact that they have stared down a
sinister Lord's greentop and pronounced that they are a long way removed
from the submissive outfit that lost 4-0 on their last tour to England.
That they scrapped throughout was undeniable, but the dominant innings
that finally rewarded a day of hard labours was not as much a stare-down
as a display of dancing eyes and neat footwork, an exceptional
counter-attacking hundred from Ajinkya Rahane that washed residual ill feeling from an engrossing opening to the second Test.
Rahane's 103 came to grief 15 minutes before the close, courtesy of a nonchalant left-handed catch in his follow-through by James Anderson,
an over in which Rahane had driven him confidently through the covers
for his second Test hundred. No matter how fulfilling his career, he
will not make too many better.
It felt like an appropriate end to a classically-paced innings, which
was necessarily cautious as India, despite their best efforts, lost
seven wickets for 145, but which then spread into a joyous second 50 at a
run a ball as England's pace quartet failed to make use of ideal
fast-bowling conditions. Stuart Broad's shake of the head and kick at
the ball as India's last pair saw out the day was an apt summation of
England's mood.
This was a most uncommon Lord's day. The groundsman, Mick Hunt, unveiled
one of the greenest Test pitches the famous old ground had ever
witnessed, certainly since the invention of motor mowers, and loud boos
broke out when Ravindra Jadeja walked out to the crease, a response to
India's insistence that Anderson's alleged altercation with him in the
first Test at Trent Bridge should be formally judged by the ICC.
|
|
|||
All it needed to complete such rare impropriety was an MCC member, his
bacon-and-egg blazer frying in the heat, to strip off to the waist in
the Long Room in the manner of Gary Ballance in a Nottingham night club
and St John's Wood would have never seemed the same again. Fortunately,
the members held their nerve. More than the England attack did. They
managed one good session out of three.
For Anderson, the leader of the attack, and a man under siege, Lord's
was designed as if to order. Cook had remarked: "He will be desperate
just to let his cricket do the talking." India would have observed that
there is a first time for everything, but as well as a zip in the pitch
there seemed to be a zip on Anderson's mouth and, as he bowled with
craft to return 4 for 55, his habitual sledging, as far as could be
ascertained, was absent. Rahane played him beautifully, collecting 33 of
those runs including a six over long-on.