When nearly 700 runs are scored in a day, it is not difficult to work out who suffered the most. The track was so well-behaved, it could have been featured in a book on etiquette. Both sets of bowlers were frustrated. England’s advantage was they knew how many runs to make. India didn’t. Yet England panicked
It was one of those days which began bizarrely with the British national anthem being sung with an American accent.
Skipper Andrew Strauss was incredible batting with a freedom and purpose that gave India an early hint to what their weakest link — the bowling — could land them in.
When Sachin Tendulkar got to his fifty in 66 balls, it was seen as a ‘plodding’ innings. When India won the World Cup in 1983, Krishnamachari Srikkanth’s 38 in the same number of deliveries was described as ‘swashbuckling’. Well, that’s how much the one-day game has changed.
What hasn’t is Tendulkar’s sense of purpose and his ability to make the best bowlers look foolish. It is easy to criticise James Anderson for bowling the wrong length to him (and sometimes compounding that by bowling the wrong line as well), but the fact is the batsman has the amazing knack to make the bowler bowl thus to him.
England’s fielding was brilliant but the bowling lacked ideas, and by winning the toss, Dhoni had given the team all the advantage it needed. Or so the home fans believed.
The Indian batting arranged itself neatly around Tendulkar as it has so many times in the past. Tendulkar, whose strike rate was initially in the 40s — it did not touch 100 until he was 94 — proceeded to give a master class. His change of gears, his cruise control and his instinct for finding gaps in the field were an education.
Once the schedule for the World Cup was announced, India’s strategy was clear. Finish on top of the group in the hope of playing New Zealand, the potential fourth-placed team from the other group. Two good days thereafter — at the quarterfinals and semifinals — and they would be in the final.
It all sounded so simple. Perhaps even simplistic.
The writer is an author and columnist who has written on the game for over a quarter century
