The 2000th Test - Day 2 Thoughts

Some weird scenes, quite a bit of struggle and some pretty good cricket. These are the thoughts which come into mind after the second day's play at Lords.

• First up the man who scored a double hundred. Kevin Pietersen just about survived thorugh his first few runs on Day 1, then struggled through to his hundred, may or may not have been out caught by Dravid at leg slip but in the end not just stayed on but hammered his way through to an unbeaten double hundred.
• Praveen Kumar was not even considered as Test material till lots of injuries and rests got him selected against the West Indies. And today with Zaheer injured, Ishant and Harbhajan totally clueless about how to take a wicket he led the attack, took a five-for and got his name put on the Lord's honours board. And more importantly bowled almost throughout the dayl.
• Dhoni and Dravid. Given the way his attack was performing, Dhoni himself came onto bowl and didnt do a bad job either. While in his place Dravid came up behind the stumps after many years and again didn't do too bad a job there. Kapil Dev has called this act a mockery of Test cricket. With all due respect to him I dont see how this is the case. Its not as if they started the day with Dhoni bowling. He came only after one full session had been played. A team is struggling and is going about with different options about taking a wicket. In fact to me it showed that like true champion sides, the current Indian team is willing to adjust and adapt to difficult situations.
• Ishant & Harbhajan. Totally ineffective. Combined figures of none for 280 from 67 overs is certainly not a good sign.
• Eoin Morgan's dismissal. On first glance everybody says its out. Morgan himself walks off. Then the Hotspot pictures come in and say the ball brushed the pad but no mark on the bat. If the decision had been challenged it would certainly had been reversed. Only issue Morgan walked off and did not review it because he thought he had edged it. So the incident pretty much opens up the DRS debate again. Technology is certainly not perfect.
• Zaheer's injury just showed how much off a difference he makes to the attack. England can call up Bresnana, Finn, Shahzad if any of their fast bowlers get injured. Whom do we call up Sreesanth, Munaf, Mithun? Hoping he gets fit soon enough. Otherwise its Advantage England for winning the series.
• In the slipstream of Pieteresen's knock, the sledgehammer of eternal justice and this blog's mascot Ian Bell scored an elegant 46 laced with 6 hits to the fence (more on that in a later post).
• Indian openers survived the day. Lets see what they can achieve today.