Test - Day Five

India win series with Mohali draw

With fog delaying the start again, India decided that a draw was the only result and tried to get both Gambhir and Yuvrav to a century, both falling short.



The Indian press have been divided on whether the team should have pressed for a win. They lost momentum on the 4th day when slow batting stopped them from being in a position to declare overnight. With time likely to be lost on the last day this appeared like a very conservative approach






So whats the right approach? To make sure of the series victory and avoid defeat at all cost, or to look to win every match??



ps the weather was the victor the following day, with fog shutting the airport until around 2pm. Despite the best efforts of our local agent, there was no way that we could get to Goa and have ended up in Delhi tonight. Still an early morning flight will get us to Goa in time for the Queen's speech.

Test - Day Four

Batsmen restore India's control

Any chance of an England run chase on the last day fell away with the batting performance before lunch which saw a paltry amount added for the last 4 wickets. After that India seemed more interested in getting into a position where they could not lose match and batted slowly all afternoon, until a small cameo from Yuvraj (which given his is a local lad went down well with the crowd).

India will declare sometime in the morning and whilst it is always difficult to bat only to avoid defeat, it is important that England manage to hold on.

Test - Day Three

India rally after Pietersen ton

Well apart from two wickets first thing, and two wickets at the close of play it was a good day. Some comments were made about both Strauss and Pietersen's decision but to be fair they were both close and could go either way. Pietersen was his typical belligerent best and after his failure in the first test, and the pressure of going in after two quick dismissals this was one of those situations where he has often shown his temperament.



"Four more for the England"

Test - Day Two

Indian duo leave England trailing

After Indian dominance day one, England needed to take wickets early to stand any chance of a victory. The pitch continues to hold up well and we were to see the continued dominance of Gambhir and Dravid take India out of contention.

To be fair England held on well and had the better of the last two sessions, dismissing India just before close of play (bad light stopping England from having to deal with a few overs). All England bowlers contributed and in Swann we may be seeing a contender for the spinning all-rounder that the team needs.

Security remains tight and its difficult to get round the ground. We did manage to sneak into the Students stand (which to locals cost 20 rupees - about 30p) to get some of the local atmosphere.

Test- Day One

Gambhir century puts India on top

After two days of perfect weather since we arrived, the morning brought cloud and the scene when arriving at the ground had more of an Old Trafford in April feel than sub-continent.

Security not surprisingly was high when entering the ground, but this has been a feature of the tour to date. For the first time we have come across the double frisk, one person does the top half with a seated guard doing the bottom half!


Moving around the ground is not simple, the best marketing mind has managed to partition off the souvenirs shop, so that it took some negotiation with the guards (having only a pass to gate 1a with shop at 1b), another scan, another search before being able to reach the shop (having eventually worked out you needed to go through the ladies search area.

The cricket started well, with Broad opening with a good spell rewarded by the wicket of Sehwag. That brought in the out of form Dravid who looked uncertain early. England bowled ok, but the wicket seemed fairly innocuous and gradually Dravid became more confident with Gambhir showing the fine form he has been in during 2008. A delay for bad light at the outset and also before close (not unexpected) meant that only 70 odd overs were bowled but India ended in a strong position.

Chandigarh

As it had been described by a client as the Milton Keynes of India, my expectations of Chandigarh were not great. The second test had been moved from Mumbai to initially Chennai and finally to Mohali which is effectively a suburb of the capital Chandigarh. So after arriving on Tuesday, I have full week to spend including the 5 (?) days of the test match.

So today was the usual city tour – beforehand it had not received a great billing and it was to cover the three main attractions of the city – the rose garden, rock garden and lake.

I must admit to never having spent any time in Milton Keynes. I have got many trains through it, have changed trains there and have probably driven through the outskirts on a few occassions. Its reputation is mixed, those that live there enjoy it, those from outside who spend time there or like me who barely know it, generally regard it as souless. But it is an example of urban planning, you start with a fairly blank sheet of paper and design a town to accommodate the needs (everchanging) of a new population.

So the same is true of Chandigarh, it was created after the partition of India/Pakistan as the capital of the Punjab state, which had been divided between India and Pakistan. A number of archtiects were used but the most famous is Le Corbusier, who included wide boulevards, parks running down the whole of the town (the lungs of the town) and plenty of open space. Design of new buildings need to provide mix of living and green space, this will never be high density, and is controlled.

So this meant the traffic was less chaotic, and also it seemed generally less crowdy than the India we had seen todate. The highlight of the tour is the rock garden.

Built over many years it is effectively a rubbish tip – ie the most environmentally friendly garden in the world made up of rubbish collected and displayed in highly thoughtful manner. It is difficult todescribe but was featured in Monty Don's best 80 gardens in the world and rightly so

Jaipur

After the Taj Mahal, we had travelled to Jaipur via road, stopping off at a palace along the way and then taking in the sites/sounds that the road journey provided.

Along the way we stopped off at a Haveli in a village. It is a very tranquil location and would be perfect for a few days stop. The locals were obviously used to tourists stopping by, but we were still something of a curiosity.

The following day we spent some time seeing the sights of Jaipur. I will post some photos shortly but in the meantime......


The cricket

England crushed by Tendulkar ton

At the end of the day it was an excellent performance by India. It showed the class they have in their batting line up and to be honest at the start of the match, a close defeat was probably as much as England could have expected. That said defeats such as this, after being in a strong position are difficult to take and it will be interesting how England react.