Lords, St John's Wood - London - Temperature around 60oC with slight chance of rain tomorrow.
Its a real nice spring like weather in London. Only between July and August, London really warms up to make it very much suitable to play a good and hard cricket. Its also the time of the year, weather get so unpredictable as per weather channel. We have seen it proved many times in Wimbledon opens.
At this great season and cool atmosphere, Team India is touring England after visiting Ireland and pocketing a good series wins over South Africa. They played good team cricket to take away the series 2-1 from Africans. It's India's first outing since 2002 to England. We won the NatWest tri-series by winning the final match 2 wkts under Ganguly's leadership. We were able to squel the 4 match test series 1-1. Its been 40 years since we won the test series in England soil.
Now its time for Dravid's to head the team and own the soul authority of the youngers to take on the Englishmen first time in his captaincy. The first match started off today in the prestigious and historic cricket ground in the world, THE LORD's. India is set to play 3 Tests and 7 ODI's during this tour.
The teams will compete to win the test series and take away the Pataudi Trophy, given by MCC to commemorate the 75th anniversary of India's Test debut.
Team India
It might probably the last English series for the famous batting quartet of captain Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman, and the four great guns will be keen to make an impression to make this contest interesting and thrilling one.
Strength
Bagging some wins on the way to London, Team India is showing good signs and has high level of confidence determined to decimate the Englishmen in full force at their own territory. They already played 2 warm-up match against the local county teams gave enough time to get acclimatised to the conditions.
Dravid better be well equipped with a good game plan and match strategy to go under critical conditions. Also our paper tigers need to show something in the pitch with some sensible and good batting. We do have strong battling lineup as usual including from Jaffer, Dinesh Karthik supported by experienced Dravid, Sachin & Ganguly. Dhoni as the 7th batsman with double duty on wicket keeping to add more depth to batting.
Weakness
Bowling department lacks experience, so it puts pressure on the bastmen to churn out big runs against the home team. Sreeshanth & RP Singh are yet to make their impression in the English Soil. Chawla will be the only spinner this time around taking the lead from Kumble to make english spin around the pitch.
Team England
Its the reciprocal tour of England tour to India in last 2006. England draw the series 1-1 but lost the ODI series to India. They sure do have plans to slump us to take away the test series.
Strength
It's their home ground and they are very well equipped with the same power to take the Indians under Vaughan leadership. The batting order is strong with Strauss and Cook opening the match. Pietersen and Collingwood will be supporting them coming next with Vaughan(captain) showing up in the middle.
Weakness
All-rounder Andrew Flintoff and paceman Steve Harmison are out of this match due to injuries. So England are banking more on their spin sensation Monty Panesar to show the magic. It will be a real test of character for the amiable spinner, the first Sikh to play Test cricket for England.
Also Broad, who has been selected in the England side for the first Test at Lord's.
To conclude, its going to be a good outing to watch and follow. With the weather really unpredictable, we have to wait and see how much cricket they can get to play.
With the strong batting order, we should be able to put chucks of runs on the board and try to bowl line and length to push them to win a match to start with and take on from there. I am hoping see a good show from the new guys Sreeshant and RP Singh. Also waiting to watch tons from Dravid and Laxman's in this series.
With the strong batting order, we should be able to put chucks of runs on the board and try to bowl line and length to push them to win a match to start with and take on from there. I am hoping see a good show from the new guys Sreeshant and RP Singh. Also waiting to watch tons from Dravid and Laxman's in this series.
