There's two kinds of poor bowling -- the kind you clobber, and the other sort, that you prescribe to chronic insomniacs.
England in the final session of day two was the latter -- uni-dimensional, focused on bowling a foot and a half outside off stump.
With slips and gullies scattered like confetti, no batsman outside of the nuthouse, confronting a near-400 score, was going to touch that.
With the ball reversing, you would have thought Harmison (4-2-10-0; which does not include two wayward ones that went down to fine leg for four byes apiece) and Flintoff, with their extra pace, would have looked to bowl on the stumps more, make the batsmen play a lot more than they in fact had to.
The point of interest thus was how Jaffar and Dravid coped with Panesar. The former in particular seemed to have spent the tea break revising his plan against the left arm spinner. In the final session, he was well forward to everything; the pad was well out of harm's way -- and despite the defensive mindset imposed by the match situation, he was quick to capitalize given a half chance.
One flighted ball on middle was driven superbly through mid on; a slightly short delivery on off saw the batsman lean back, wait a lifetime, then play the most delicate of late cuts.
Dravid and Chappell, who are reportedly looking for attitude and commitment, will like what they saw of Jaffer today -- his knock has been one of composure, patience, and a willingness to work hard to grab the chance he's been given.
Panesar, against these tactics, was forced finally to go over the wicket, bowling the defensive line into the rough outside leg stump a move that immediately took the LBW, the bowled, and to a large extent the slip, out of the equation while opening up the sweep as an option. One such shot, immaculately played with the bat on top of the bounce, got Jaffar his first Test 50 (121 deliveries, 10 fours) since Lord's, 2002 (he's only played one Test since then, mind).
Dravid for his part opted for tight defense, with the push off his pads and a rare paddle against Panesar the only signs of attempted violence. He, however, played the shot(s) of the day when, in the 37th over, he first straight drove Hoggard so well he crashed the ball into the stumps at the other end and got nothing for his pains; then turned his wrist at the last split second to flick a late reversing delivery to the square leg fence at the speed of light.
Ian Blackwell got his first bowl in the 36th over of the Indian innings -- after an extended 10 over spell from Panesar towards the end of which the left armer seemed to tire and lose his bite.
Blackwell runs to the crease a touch quicker than Panesar; his arm action is quicker, he gives the ball a lot less air and turns it to Kumble-esque degrees if that -- all of which makes for good defensive bowling, but does not pose a threat to batsmen who know what they are doing.
The 100-run partnership came off 213 deliveries; Jaffar contributed 50 off 123 deliveries to Dravid's 32/90. It was not quite the sort of Test cricket we've gotten used to in these frenetic times, but it was fascinating stuff. England clearly looked to break India's patience; India, to dampen England's fizz and make the bowlers sweat it out in hot conditions.
By close, the bowling and fielding didn't pretend to be anything other than defensive; clearly, the two batsmen had won that particular battle -- and the session, which ended a couple of overs early for light, and produced 95 runs in 31 overs at 3.06 rpo, to take India in at 136/1 in 48 overs.
The Indian gameplan is clearly to play the waiting game. 270 overs still remain in the game after today; the home side will not want to bat again and that means using up a further 120-140 overs to overhaul England and put a lead on the board for the bowlers to give it a go (Do the math -- even at 3 an over, that is between 360-420 in addition to what is already on the board, and you would expect the batting to gain momentum by the afternoon session tomorrow). That, in turn, means blunting the England bowling, first, before looking to see if Tendulkar, Laxman and Dhoni can break the game open for you.
There could be the feeling that the scoring was a tad on the slow side; two points however militate against that. Firstly, given the line largely well outside off, anything flash was problematical. More to the point, England's innings demonstrated the need, on a pitch that is slow and a touch low, for patience, for batting of the attritional variety. You cannot fault England on day one for playing too many shots, and then fault India today for the exact opposite.
Reports, here, on the morning session and afternoon session here.
Over and out from me for the day; will be back, around 8.30 in the evening my time tomorrow.
