The Miracle in Mumbai – day four

England 413 and 58 for 0 beat India 327 and 142 by a country mile

Ok, so ‘miracle’ might be too strong a word, but be honest. How many England supporters really thought we’d have a rat’s posterior’s chance of winning this match – especially when we lost the toss on Friday morning?

Test matches in India, Pakistan (or the UAE) and Sri Lanka usually end in catastrophe and embarrassment – and joy for all the millions of Asians who love the English about as much as we love Ricky Ponting.

But this time – on this one glorious occasion – we can celebrate and shout “Mahatma Gandhi, Mallika Sherawat (no we’ve never heard of her either, but she came top of the list when I Googled ‘Bollywood actresses’), Ravi Shastri, Shilpa Shetty … your boys took one hell of a beating”.

What’s more, we can now contemplate the outside chance of a series victory. Our spinners bowled better than India’s in this match, so why shouldn’t be confident of winning another couple of matches? Our batsmen are slowly coming to terms with the conditions and Pietersen is back in form.

All we need now is for Trott and Bell to score a few runs – and for Cook / Flower to pick the right bloody side – and victory could be ours. Let’s face it – we basically won this game with nine men. Broad and Patel contributed very little.

In the third test, England must replace Patel with a bonafide batsman – one who is picked on the strength of his batting, not his ability to bowl a few overs  – and a proper second seamer. Broad needs a rest from test cricket. 78mph is for division two of the county championship and club cricket. It does not belong in the test arena.

We’re not writing Broad off – as he was a potent seamer a year ago – but he simply doesn’t merit his place in the side at the moment. Finn should play instead. And if Finn isn’t fully fit, then Onions should get the nod.

Normally I’m a five bowler man. In fact, I like it England’s stubborn strategy of picking a four man attack about as much as I like the reading the comments by xenophobic morons on cricinfo. However, if two of them are specialist spinners, who can basically bowl unchanged for entire sessions, fatigue is not as much of an issue. Swann and Monty are our stock-bowlers and matchwinners in this part of the world.

Meanwhile, let’s leave the run scoring to proper batsman. That means bringing Bell back into the side at Patel’s expense (with Bairstow keeping his place at six).

However, perhaps this should be the debate for another day. England wrapped up a truly memorable victory today and it’s time for celebration.

So leave your desk. Let your hair down. Find the nearest pub – and drink until you can’t stand up anymore. And if you want to wear a Monty Panesar facemask while you’re doing it, we’re not going to stop you.

James Morgan

2 comments

  • It does seem that India did not rate Monty prior to this test; his economy rate was quite high which suggested that the batsmen tried to attack him. England would not do it but I would like to see Bell at six which history has shown to produce his highest average.

  • It’s an interesting point. Mike Hussey has always batted six as far as I know, and Australia have resisted the temptation to move him up.

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