Tuesday, July 24, 2007

NO REPEAT OF 1990

Andrew Strauss was hopelessly out of form until the Indians paid a visit. He came good in the tour match and nearly scored a ton in the test at Lords’. It is always surprising that batsmen in general and left-handers in particular relish the Indian bowling when suffering from bad form.

Dinesh Karthick grassed a simple chance given by Strauss on the first day and the carnage of 1990 was on the cards. In that test match, Azharuddin won the toss and put the home team in. Kiran More dropped a sitter and the beneficiary was Graham Gooch. The English opener went on to score 333 in the first innings and also managed a hundred in the second innings. Till today, the combined score of Gooch remains the highest ever in a test match. India lost the test by a mile despite the efforts of Azharuddin and Kapil Dev.

But this time round, Strauss could only score 96 and India was left off the hook.

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