There's a tendency for us in England to look at our own shortcomings in defeat rather than praise the opposition for their good work. Let me put it on record, straightaway, that India's show in the third Test at Headingley was truly superlative. Saurav Ganguly's boys carried on where they left off at Trent Bridge—they took great comfort in salvaging a draw in the second Test, and simply picked up the momentum from there.
It was a bit of a gamble to bat first, but John Wright had done his homework and decided that was the way to go if Ganguly won the toss. But to bat first and get 600 plus runs was quite outrageous—it was the kind of wicket on which I thought even 300 was a reasonable score. Rahul Dravid played one of the best innings I have seen on the Headingley wicket. Sachin Tendulkar followed him and then Ganguly weighed in as well. Three hundreds, one of those nearly a double, on a wicket like that was amazing and nobody should underestimate the achievement.
The Indians were, however, aided by some very poor England bowling. The hosts had about two bad days and you really cannot afford that in a Test match. Certainly not if you want to win it. In modern day cricket, it is an uphill task after a bad session, and here England suffered for two days as the big three Indian batsmen profited from some pretty bad bowling in conditions the attack was hoping for. From India's point of view, it was a happy hunting ground for the batsmen to come good at just the time when the bowling was off colour.
For the Indian batsmen to click didn't surprise me because it is a line-up packed with class. What did surprise me was that bowlers like Matthew Hoggard, on his home ground, and Andrew Caddick, with his ability to exploit conditions offering swing, seam and some uneven bounce, gave a below par performance. Not that some of the England batsmen covered themselves in glory. I was talking to John Crawley and he reckoned that the ball that accounted for him in the second innings (caught by Virender Sehwag in the covers off Sanjay Bangar) sat on the wicket longer than he expected. It was not a slow ball, but it just did not come up, making his shot look worse than it actually was. Mark Butcher did not have the same excuse—he had played a couple of good cover drives, but chasing a wide one from Bangar without the right head or foot movement was a big disappointment for him and, from the look on his face, for Nasser Hussain at the other end as well. You can make excuses for some, but not for the way Ashley Giles was run out. But the Indian bowlers too did exactly what was required of them—Ajit Agarkar, Zaheer Khan and Bangar all pitched it up at the right spot and made batting hard work. Agarkar and Zaheer bowled at a decent pace as well.
The defining phase of the match for me was the Bangar/Dravid partnership. It may have been a slow progress, but it drew all the sting out of the England attack. A 170-run stand for the second wicket was the perfect foundation for the 150-run stand between Dravid and Tendulkar, and then for the spectacular 249 between the Little Master and Ganguly. In contrast, England just had one century partnership between Hussain and Alec Stewart. There you have the outcome of the match in a nutshell. All the batsmen who had long innings needed a bit of luck in those conditions, but for the England bowlers to take only four wickets in the first two days says a lot.
The scene now shifts to the Oval. It boasts of a good wicket, offering some help to the spinners. That should favour India on the face of it, but I am not quite sure. I think England batsmen have gained from the experience of the last two winters in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and India and now even someone like Stewart looks pretty comfortable against the spinners. What will be interesting to see is how the likes of Agarkar, Zaheer and Bangar perform on good wickets—they did very well when they got help at Headingley but the Oval has a flat pitch. Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh are fine bowlers, but you cannot rely on spinners to get all the wickets. I am keen to see if the quicker bowlers have the required armoury to break through on a batting wicket like the Oval.
What we do know is that the Indians will be going to London with their spirits high after the Leeds victory. Ganguly said in a press conference that his team might not have won a series outside Asia since 1986, but they are beginning to win matches away from home and are getting better all the time. All we want is five days of good weather and I think we shall be in for a very, very good Test match.