India’s Tour of England 2011

It is all set for the 2000th test match in the history of the great game of cricket tomorrow and it is to be the home of cricket, Lord’s Cricket Ground that is going to be the venue for the match. The England team would be challenging the number one ranked test team in the world, India in what is going to be the 100th test match between the two countries. India will play 4 tests, 5 one dayers, a one-off T20 game in England and four tour matches, of which one match against Somerset has already been played.

The anticipation of Sachin Tendulkar’s 100th international hundred is one certain factor that is going to spice up the first test at Lord’s. Many essays and articles have already been written on this factor. Not only Indians, but also the whole world is waiting for that moment. What a great occasion it would be if the great man can hit his 100th hundred in the home of cricket, a place where he hasn’t got any hundred till now and his highest score is a meagre 37. As is always the case, the British media is flooding with essays on Tendulkar’s greatness, memoirs of him by his former colleagues in Yorkshire and his former opponents from the English team, tips and advices for the English bowlers on how to minimise the threat of Tendulkar and so on.

Though the impact of Sachin Tendulkar’s imminent 100th hundred is going to be quite big in this series, it is not the only thing that people are looking forward to. This series is where the number one ranked team in the world is being challenged by a team that is biting on its heels to become the number one. England has had a great couple of seasons of test match cricket at home and away, the most important one being their Ashes win down under in 2010-2011. There are a lot of high impact players in the team including Kevin Pietersen, Alistair Cook, Ian Bell, James Anderson, Graeme Swann and the captain Andrew Strauss himself. There are also some Englishmen, who have made great progress in the recent years including Chris Tremlett, Tim Bresnan, Eoin Morgan and Jonathan Trott. There are lot of Indian players too who are ready to make an impact in the series. The great wall of India Rahul Dravid, the very very special Laxman, captain cool MSD, pace ace Zaheer Khan, the irascible yet highly talented Gautam Gambhir and the lanky Ishant Sharma are some of them.

The series would also be an occasion for some mouth watering duels between players of both sides. The cricket enthusiasts are looking forward to see the one-on-one between Andrew Strauss and Zaheer Khan, Alistair Cook and Ishant Sharma and Graeme Swann against the big three of Indian batting Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman. There would also be face offs between Eoin Morgan and Suresh Raina to judge who is the better No.6 batman among the two and also between the captains MS Dhoni and Andrew Strauss on their tactical moves as captains.

The series between India and England would also be the 100th match as head coach for Duncan Fletcher, the first coach to achieve that. The Zimbabwean who has been instrumental in making the English team a strong outfit will have the curious responsibility of strategising their downfall in this series. It would be interesting to see how he is going to handle this enormous onus.

This 16th tour of India to England is one great occasion to revive the losing magic of test match cricket. As this is the second part of English summer, there won’t be a lot of moisture in the pitches and the prediction is that it is going to be a batting paradise for the batsmen of both sides. When that is the case, much would depend on how well the bowlers on both sides bowl to the opponent batsmen. England would be trying to use the pace and bounce of the pitch to their advantage and would be looking to put the Indian batsmen to the backfoot, both literally and figuratively, by bowling short. They are already speaking about how Chris Tremlett can bowl short and put the Indian batsmen on to the defensive. But unlike in the past India also has got excellent pacers in the team including the lanky pacer Ishant Sharma who can extract bounce on any surface with his height and high arm action.

The entire cricketing world is closely watching this series and if England can win the series with a margin of 2 tests they would knock down India from the top position and become the No.1 test team in the world. So there is a lot at stake for both teams in this series and we are surely going to witness a hard fought series in the English grounds this summer.