India V England 1st Test at Lord’s: Injuries Could Push India Over The Edge

It has been a rather difficult Lord’s Test match for the Indians and it is a surprise that they are still in it. Going into the last day of the match, they need to bat out 98 overs to save the game and if they do that, they would have probably managed a coup of sorts.

It began with Virender Sehwag ruled out of this Test match with his shoulder injury. He will now miss at least two Test matches, which meant that Abhinav Mukund got a chance to play his first Test in England.

However, the bigger blow came in the first innings when Zaheer Khan had to walk back to the pavilion in the middle of an over, grimacing with pain from his strained hamstring. He did not bowl a single ball again and that left India without their spearhead. Not only that, it also meant that the Indians had only three main bowlers remaining, forcing captain MS Dhoni to roll his arm over for a few.

The fourth day saw India walk out into the park but there was no sign of Sachin Tendulkar on the field. It had been deemed that he had been hit by a viral bug, which meant that he was away from the field for a total of 218 minutes. The rules stipulate that a player who has not been hit by an external injury cannot bat for the amount of period that they have not fielded.

This translates into Tendulkar not being allowed to bat for that much time. India have already played out 120 minutes of that time but that means that if they lose another wicket within the first 98 minutes or so, Tendulkar will not be able to come out to bat.

Then, there was the issue with Gautam Gambhir and his injury. Fielding close to the batsmen in a catching position, he was hit by a solid drive from Matt Prior, leaving him in considerable pain. He walked off the field and while his injury was external, he needed to get to a hospital to get X-rays done to assess the damage. This meant that he couldn’t open the innings and left Rahul Dravid to do the job.

Gambhir should be able to bat tomorrow, according to the Indian management, but then, this was the same management which had announced that Zaheer Khan would be fit to bowl in the second innings. He did not even take field.