By Abhishek Manroa
MUMBAI, India (TheSportsNEXT)
December 5, 2012: India reached 90 for the loss of two wickets with opening batsman Virender
Sehwag gifting his wicket away to England on first day of the third Test at Eden
Gardens in Kolkata on Wednesday.
The four-match Test series is leveled at 1-1 after India won
the Ahmedabad Test by nine wickets before England bounced back in Mumbai Test
with a 10-wicket triumph.
The Eden Gardens pitch has been the darling of local as well
as international media organizations in the past few days but the curator made
a pitch which is mostly going to favor the batsmen during first three days
before spinners start getting the bite from the surface. The cricket experts were
of the view that fast bowlers will get some purchase out of the wicket during
first couple of hours of the Test match but it would be one-way ride for the
batsmen afterwards until it starts to break in the final two days.
Indian team replaced Harbhajan Singh with fast bowler Ishant
Sharma was the pitch is likely to assist pacers during initial phase of the
proceedings while on the other hand England included middle-order batsman Ian
Bell and tall fast bowler Steven Finn in place of Jonny Bairstow and vice
captain Stuart Broad.
Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni once again won the toss
and decided to bat first on a pitch which may have demons in it for the fourth
innings.
MSD’s opening batsmen proved the choice right with some
quality shot-making during initial overs and took the total to 47 without loss
from 10 overs.
It all went in India’s way until first ball of the 11th
over when Virender Sehwag flicked one away to the midwicket area. Samit Patel
made a good run and managed to keep the ball within the playing area by sliding
on the boundary line with Steven Finn throwing the ball back to the wicketkeeper.
The two batsmen easily completed two runs but Sehwag wanted the third run and
both batsmen had no connection at all with Gautam Gambhir watching at the
fielders while Sehwag busy in running for the third. When Gambhir asked Sehwag
to go back to his crease, it was too little too late as Matt Prior made no
mistake to dislodge the stumps in due time.
Virender Sehwag scored 23 runs from 26 balls and it is worth
mentioning here that this is the fourth time that Sehwag has been runout with
Gambhir on the other end. The last three occasions came in 2005, 2008, and
2009.
The Eden Gardens has been an ominous ground for the opening
batsmen in the last few Test matches as no opening pair has been able to score
a hundred runs partnership here in the last 19 innings. The last time, the
opening batsmen did score a century stand at the Eden Gardens was in November
2002 when West Indian openers Wavell Hinds and Chris Gayle amassed 172 runs for
the opening wicket.
With runs coming quickly for Indians, England skipper
Alastair Cook decided to turn to his spinning options and soon left-arm
offspinner Monty Panesar got rid of the Indian runs machine in the series
Cheteshwar Pujara for just 16 runs from 48 balls as Indians were rocked at 88
for two.
As Pujara perished, the illustrious Sachin Tendulkar stepped
into the Eden Gardens and the crowd went berserk hailing
to the living legend.
Soon Gautam Gambhir achieved his 21st Test half
century and his second in the current series as the left-hand opening batsman
has started to rediscover the lost form.
Despite of some scary moments, Gautam Gambhir and Sachin Tendulkar
managed to take India at lunch without losing much of the initial advantage but Alastair Cook
and company would be happy with how the initial session of the Kolkata Test went.
Gautam Gambhir was not out at 50 while Sachin Tendulkar was
unbeaten at one at lunch on day one.
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