The match started with lot of drama as Sehwag gave two near catch chances during the first over. Sehwag got out soon but after giving a small dynamite innings. Sachin and Gambhir took over from there and built a very strong platform for Indian team. Bowlers seemed powerless against these two batsmen. Both of them played quality cricket shots and an important point to highlight here is that none of these players tried anything unnecessary or played extra carefully. Sachin went after Swan and medium paced bowlers and did not allow them to settle. We don’t know why but during bowling English pace bowlers seemed reluctant to try yorkers or more quantity of good length deliveries. Instead they stuck with slow bouncers and short pitched deliveries which later on proved to be a very expensive stretegy. In my opinion they should not have over done the slow bouncer cause there is no fun of such delivery if the batsman is pre expecting it. English team was average in the field, and lack of variation and intelligent bowling enabled Indian team to give a steep target of 338 runs which had put a lot of pressure on English batsmen.
The question was were the English batsmen upto the task and they replied in a beautiful maner. The initial partnership between Strauss and Peterson was worth watching. The idea of bringing Peterson up in the batting order is really paying off for England. Strauss and Bell built up a great partnership after loss of Peterson due to a lucky catch and Trott. Bell got very lucky during his innings as he was saved from an LBW because of the point of impact of ball with the pad was more than 2.5 meters down the pitch (a rule which seriously needs review after the hawk eye). Nevertheless Strauss led his teamm to a point where victory seemed iminent. When England took power play we thought that the match was over but some exceptional bowling by Zaheer Khan turned the tables and English middle batting order completely collapsed. However Dhoni during last 3 overs was left with less experienced bowlers as Zaheer and Harbajan had complated their quota of 10 overs. There was a lot of drama during last 3 overs and the match ended in a tie. Indian fielding at the moments when it mattered most was pathetic. They seriously need to keep themselves composed under pressure. Chawla could have created problems but he remained nervous during his bowling and bowled too mush shorter length deliveries. The bottom line is that it was a brilliant match full of nerve breaking drama and fans of both the teams were satisfied in the end.
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