India started slow and England struck early, leaving India in a shock state with the early wickets of Sehwag, Gambhir, Sachin, Dravid, Laxman and Yuvraj. Swann, Flintoff, Panesar and Harmison did the job for England team. India was 202/6 at the closing of day 2, Dhoni and Harbhajan on the pitch to continue for day 3 of the first test match.

England resumed at 229/5 with Andrew Flintoff on stumps. India looked confident to keep the opponents under 300 runs, with Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma getting reverse swing at the end of day one. First two maiden overs from Indian bowlers took a grip on the latent pressure of day one over English batsmen. M S Dhoni replaced I Sharma with Amit Mishra in the 3rd over of day 2. It was an interesting move. In the first session Mishra and Harbhajan did the magic, Mishra taking off the pitch Flintoff (18), Anderson at 19 runs and Harbhajan took Swann for 1 run. The English team live score at the end of 1st session was 294/8. Gambhir, Yuvraj and Dravid took the catches respectively for the bowlers. Yuvraj took Harmison at 6 runs in the 122nd over scorecard at 303/9. The last partner ship of Prior and Monty Panesar added another 13 runs and Panesar was out LBW in Ishant Sharma’s over. England scored 316/10 in 128.4 over on day 2.

India came to bat with opener Gambhir and Sehwag. England had their game plan of restricting India from reaching the total, and went aggressive in their bowling attack. After 5 over India were 12/0. Anderson and Harmison were in the attack. Anderson bowled Sehwag for 9 runs, a major break through for England. Gambhir and Dravid seemed struggling to hold the pitch. Gambhir (19) was off the pitch with a leg-before-wicket decision in the over of Swann. Swann took another wicket in the same over, sending back Dravid for 3 runs. India’s score was down to 30/3 in the 14th over.

India was stunned with the early wicket loss, Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman tried to hold the Indian flag. Sachin hit a six on a lose ball from Swann, and raised a hope of moving the cricket scorecard to 46/3. Sachin completed his 2000 runs against England with the six. Laxman gave a helping hand to Sachin with scoring fours on the other side of the pitch. After 25th over India were 81/3 with two great test players on the ground. The duo hit hard to keep the live score moving for India. Panesar got hold off Laxman (24) in the 32nd over. Yuvraj Singh came on the pitch with Sachin. Sachin (37) lost is wicket with a direct catch thrown at Flintoff on his bowl. England was desperate to get a wicket of anyone, but they were blessed with two in consecutive overs. Harmison hit again taking Yuvraj (14) off the ground, breaking the last scoring partnership for India.

During the end of day 2, Dhoni and Harbhajan were on the pitch and handling the early loss pressure for Indian team, Dhoni is in good form and Harbhajan trying to support by not throwing the wicket. Scorecard at the end of day 2 was England all out at 316, India in bat 202/6. For more details log into Cricket360.com.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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