Often know as the Wall of the Indian cricket, Rahul Dravid lived up to this nickname on the third day of the first Test match at Lord’s with a century that had a typical Dravid trademark stamped over it. However, it was not enough to get the Indians close to the English score by the time their innings had been ended by another superlative performance from the under-pressure Stuart Broad.
Dravid Gets To 100, But India Collapse
Broad’s four-wicket haul and ample support at the other end from the all the remaining bowlers was enough to bowl India out for 286, which gave the English a lead of 188 runs. England negotiated the five overs that they had at the end of the innings to get to five for no loss.
Going into lunch at 102 for two and with Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar at the crease, one would have thought that the Indians were in safe hands. For almost 45 minutes after the lunch break and after the pair had added 56 in the session, it was Tendulkar’s wicket that brought the English back into the game.
With the toehold into the door, the English bowlers burst into the inlet with some superb pressure. VVS Laxman has shown superlative form recently but he only managed to pull Chris Tremlett to the fine-leg, while Suresh Raina played back to one from Graeme Swann and was declared out lbw.
There was some resistance shown by MS Dhoni but Tremlett had him edging to the slips as well, before there were ducks for Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma that pegged the Indians back. The follow-on was saved through the eighth wicket stand between Dravid and Praveen Kumar but that was about what they managed to muster.
Dravid remained unbeaten on 103.
With two days of the game to go and the Indians expected to miss out on Zaheer Khan yet again, things look pretty bleak for the tourists. A target of 400 would be an improbable chase, and that is exactly what England will be looking at setting the Indians. However, they will also need about four sessions to bowl the Indians out and that should mean that England’s target will be to get to 200 runs in the two sessions that they bat on the fourth day.
India, on the other hand, would do well to pray for some rain to take some overs off their fourth innings chase.
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