From South to North. Would England’s fortunes take a turn as well? From down to up? Maybe, maybe not. India won the toss and Dhoni had absolutely no hesitation in batting first. India won their last match here when they routed Australia in a thumping one-sided match. Would they be able to repeat such an effort?

Stuart Broad replaced Steve Harmison and struck in his first over as the dangerous Sehwag was caught behind for nothing. India were 6/1. In comes Rahul Dravid. Struggling for form. Questions raised about his place in the squad. But the thumbs up from the selectors and the BCCI was just the tonic this war veteran needed. Although he started scratchily, after lunch we got to see Dravid of old. Rock solid defense. Crispy drives. It was all there as he got to his 54th half century.

Gautam Gambhir on the other hand has been in supreme form this year. And it continued on with another century. His 3rd in 4 matches. India have definitely found a gem of an opener who can bat in any form of the game and with Sehwag both make a potent opening combination.

India finished the day at 179/1 with both Dravid and Gambhir not out. England’s fast bowlers could not find any sideways movement, and of the two specialist spinners, only Graeme Swann was somewhat effective. Monty Panesar was not allowed to settle down at all by Gambhir. Pietersen has plenty of problems at the moment as India would be looking to bat his team out of this match tomorrow.


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