England are reeling after stand-in Sreesanth shines

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10 April 2012

England faced a struggle to build a strong first-innings total after losing six wickets for only 88 runs during a much-improved Indian bowling performance here today.

One-nil down in the four-match series after their 196-run defeat at Lord's, India needed to respond quickly in this game and made an excellent start, removing both Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott for single-figure scores inside the opening 11 overs of the day.

England had been put in to bat and found themselves 23 for two. Andrew Strauss and Kevin Pietersen ensured the home team reached lunch without suffering further loss, but in the first over after the interval, Pietersen became the recalled Shanthakumaran Sreesanth's second victim.

In ideal swing bowling conditions, Praveen Kumar then picked up Andrew Strauss and Eoin Morgan in the same over to leave England needing another rescue act from Matt Prior. He scored a counter-attacking second-innings century at Lord's but could not repeat that here because the outstanding Sreesanth accounted for him as well.

Sreesanth is a fiery character but it is Praveen who might have to explain himself to match referee Ranjan Madugalle. Praveen was convinced that he had trapped Pietersen lbw and expressed his annoyance towards umpire Marais Erasmus when he took the opposite view.

As he had at Lord's, India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the toss and chose to bowl first but both teams were weakened by injuries.

Chris Tremlett suffered a back spasm and had also been suffering hamstring problems since Lord's, so he was replaced in the England bowling attack by Tim Bresnan. It was Bresnan's first Test since the Ashes-clinching victory at Sydney in January.

India's premier bowler Zaheer Khan did not recover from the hamstring strain he sustained at Lord's, while the elbow injury suffered by opener Gautam Gambhir also ruled him out. Sreesanth came in for Zaheer and Yuvraj Singh was chosen in place of Gambhir, meaning Rahul Dravid would be moved up to open with Abhinav Mukund.

Cook has been in outstanding form since the First Ashes Test in Brisbane but made only 12 and one at Lord's and suffered his third consecutive failure here. He had already survived a leg-before shout from Praveen before he was dismissed in Ishant Sharma's third over from the Pavilion End.

Cook appeared to have been unlucky as replays suggested the ball would have cleared the stumps.

Because the use of ball-tracking technology as part of the Decision Review System has been vetoed by India for this series, though, Cook had to accept the decision.

Trott has been nearly as prolific as Cook since Brisbane, yet he, too, would fail here. This is Sreesanth's first Test appearance for six months but he struck with his fourth delivery of the morning, producing an out-swinger that tempted Trott to drive and VVS Laxman took the catch at second slip. That left England 23 for two and Strauss and Pietersen needed to rebuild. Strauss has not scored a Test half-century since Sydney and he was careful, whereas Pietersen was full of confidence after his unbeaten 202 at Lord's.

Pietersen scored boundaries from consecutive deliveries but when he had reached 17, Praveen appealed strongly for lbw against him. Erasmus gave Pietersen the benefit of the doubt and HawkEye indicated he had been correct to do so, but that did not spare the South African official from facing the anger of Praveen. At the end of the over, Praveen appeared to remonstrate with Erasmus and had to be led away by team-mates Harbhajan Singh and Suresh Raina.

Strauss proved he was starting to settle by driving Sreesanth down the ground for four, one of the shots of the morning session. He and Pietersen saw their team safely to lunch with a stand of 46 that left England 69 for two.

The final over of the morning session was bowled by Yuvraj, once labelled a 'pie-chucker' by Pietersen. KP avoided embarrassment but his dismissal soon came. In the first over after the break, Pietersen was distracted by a piece of covering that had come loose from a window above the sight screen. With his concentration interrupted, Pietersen pushed away from his body at another out-swinger from Sreesanth and was snaffled by Raina at third slip.

Raina took an even better catch to remove Strauss, who drove away from his body at Praveen. And three balls later, Morgan was deceived by Praveen's inswinger and was out leg-before for his second duck in three innings.

Prior, having made just one, then became the sixth wicket to fall when he was tempted to play at another fine delivery from Sreesanth and Dravid made no mistake at first slip.

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