England - Cricket's Modern Powerhouse

Mishra & Tendulkar 100 partnership

For two hours of this last day of the series, Sachin Tendulkar and his night watchman mate Amit Mishra, batted in the manner Test cricket deserves. With backs to the wall and their side thrashed in the three previous outings, they defied this powerful English attack, kept their wickets intact and scored runs as they could. They were still there at lunch and soon after bought up their hundred partnership and with Raina, Dhoni and Gambhir still to bat the crowd started to sense India finally making a stand in this series.

Then in an hour, either side of drinks and using just fifteen overs, it was finished. Mishra played inside the line of a straight ball from Swann and lost his off stump, ending a stand of 144 with Tendulkar and with the door ajar slightly, England came bursting through to end things in a hurry. Tendulkar and Raina both went in the dying overs of the old cherry. Bresnan was the fairy tale killer, dipping the old ball back into Tendulkar and intercepting the pad in front of the top of leg stump. On another day with another umpire he might have survived, but Rod Tucker is seldom wrong. The elusive hundred will have to wait until yet another day, for even though this was a good 91, his form has been patchy this series. He has often looked good but has failed to produce the scores India needed to back up the heroic work of Dravid. Raina was another lefthander to fall victim to a Swann arm ball and he bagged a pair, although unluckily after a small inside edge.

Mishra bowled by Swann

Andrew Strauss took the new ball immediately it was due, swinging Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad into the attack. Broad cleaned up Dhoni and Singh with edges to Swann and Prior with fast, straight ones outside off stump. After only three overs from Anderson, Swann was back into the attack to finish it. Gambhir jumped down to drive and could only loft a soft catch to Morgan at point and Sreesanth had no skills or stomach for fight with the off spinner.

England won the series pretty much as they liked. After the game, the opposition coaches named their men of the series. Duncan Fletcher gave the gong to Stuart Broad for his 25 wickets @ 13.84 and although Kevin Pietersen and Ian Bell must have been in the running, both scoring 500 plus @ plenty. Perhaps Broad's additional 182 runs @ 67 gave him allround appeal, because Jimmy Anderson was the best bowler on show from either side. Andy Flower didn't need to be a brain surgeon to pick out Rahul Dravid as India's best, his three centuries being more than any player on either side.

For England, they have the chance to hold their ranking for some time. They were due to play Pakistan on the sub continent in January but its a tour that is unlikely to go ahead. Their next Test encounters won't be until the next English summer when they take on the West Indies and then late in their summer, the tourists that will get pay TV into my household, South Africa. For India, their next encounter is a Boxing Day Test against the Aussies: the first of four in a series the Australians won't be as worried about as they might have been five weeks ago.