India ease to seven-wicket win

FE Team | Published: August 01, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly acknowledge the cheers while the England team look on.

After all the excellent work done over the last four days, India needed only to complete the formalities on the final morning but they were made to work hard to polish off the remaining 63 runs. Led by a fiery spell from Chris Tremlett, England fought with plenty of heart, and India needed 21 overs before finally completing a seven-wicket victory, their fifth Test win in England and the first at Trent Bridge, to go 1-0 in the series, according to website cricinfo.
Wasim Jaffer and Dinesh Karthik resumed the Indian innings at 10 for 0, and motored to 47 fairly comfortably. Karthik played a couple of handsome backfoot punches square on the off side, while Jaffer played his trademark effortless flicks. Both played and missed a few times off Ryan Sidebottom, but a ten-wicket win was on the cards when Tremlett struck - not once, but three times. England's only hope of gaining some brownie points was to take a few top-order wickets before the Oval Test, and Tremlett did that, nailing both openers with short balls that bounced more than the batsmen expected - Jaffer top-edged a pull to gully while Karthik nicked a beauty which bounced and seamed away.
Buoyed by those successes, Tremlett and James Anderson let rip at India's two most experienced batsmen. Both bowlers liberally dished out short-pitched deliveries, and then mixed it with pitched-up, awayswingers. Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid played and missed a few times, before Tendulkar pushed at a short one off his hips straight to Alastair Cook at leg gully, who had been cleverly stationed for that stroke.
Dravid, though, patiently swayed out of the way of every short ball that came his way, and with a target of 73, victory was only a matter of time. The winning runs came when Anderson bowled an inswinger which beat Sourav Ganguly and Matt Prior, and raced down for four byes.
Scorecard
England 1st innings
Total: (all out) 198
India 1st innings
Total: (all out) 481
England 2nd innings
Total: (all out) 355
India 2nd innings (target: 73 runs)
KD Karthik c Prior b Tremlett 22
W Jaffer c Pietersen b Tremlett 22
R Dravid not out 11
SR Tendulkar c Cook b Tremlett 1
SC Ganguly not out 2
Extras: (b 4, lb 6, w 2, nb 3) 15
Total: (3 wickets; 24.1 overs) 73
Toss: India, who chose to field first
Series: India led the 3-match series 1-0
Player of the match: Z Khan (India)
Result: India won by 7 wickets