Good Day 1

It almost seems like a repeat of the previous test with India on top at the end of Day 1. The top order shone and the Rain God stayed away. He probably watched the first session of play from afar and was too bored to pay a visit 🙂

But the most important thing for a batting team on day 1 is to not loose any wickets before lunch. With the threat of new ball gone, they can then accelerate freely, which is what Karthik and Jaffar did. The Karthik-Jaffar partnership seems to be an all or nothing affair. They have so far had 2 partnerships over 150 and 2 partnerships worth nothing! Karthik really led the way after lunch, before Jaffar joined the party, thanks to some innocuous bowling from Bangladesh. The heat and humidity were far more threatening than the bowling and it got rid of both Karthik and Jaffar. Jaffar got a hundred, but Karthik must be ruing his missed opportunity. He still has a chance of coming back tomorrow to finish off what he started.

India eventually finished at 326 without the loss of any wickets and Bashar must be cursing himself for putting India in to bat. Dravid on the other hand must be a happy man, having helped himself to 88* – He was also scoring at a healthy clip of four an over.

Tendulkar replaced Jaffar at the other end and he crawled to 9 of 31 balls. He must have decided to not give away his wicket so late in the evening, so as to come back in the morning and start fresh. Still, I am not a big fan of this slow over-defensive approach – he has to back himself and get out of this defensive mindset or teams like England and Australia will have him for breakfast.

At the end of the day though, India are sitting pretty and the aim must be to declare tomorrow around Tea.

-Mahesh-