India Flogged

Yuraj ducks a Bresnan short ball

You can dress it up however you wish but India have been blasted away on the fourth day of the second Test and have had only one competitive day from the nine in this series so far. Injury excuses are insufficient to counter India's performances, as England themselves have had to cover  problems across the two Tests, yet have emerged so far ahead of the world number 1 as to make a mockery of the ranking system.

In Nottingham, England lost Tremlett on the eve of the Test. His replacement Tim Bresnan, took five Indian second innings wickets to wrap up the Test and all of them from the quality end of the batting line up. England's batting order was re-arranged to cater for an injury to their pivotal number three man Trott but Bell just jumped up the order and peeled of an sparkling century and everyone else lent a hand.

England have all the answers before the questions are asked.

The English "tail" added a superfluous additional hundred runs in the morning session at five an over, with Bresnan the star and in the end, unlucky not to reach three figures. Had it not been for the whole hearted efforts of Praveen Kumar, he might well have but Kumar managed to lift one up onto the shoulder of Bresnan's bat when glory was in sight. Kumar's second innings bowling was outstanding for a young man. At a time when the senior men appear to lost interest - indeed Inshant Sharma has been more joke than threat - he bent his back and removed most of the men who flogged the rest. Broad, of course, made runs again at 9.

Tendulkar stood alone.

India had lost Dravid in the five overs before lunch and six were gone before tea. Tendulkar stood alone, making 56 while the rest of the top seven made 22. Anderson and Broad made early inroads but it was Bresnan who unsettled the Indians with short stuff which they did not handle at all well. Lessons have been well learned from Caribbean footage and applied against the Indians in this series. Whether fending or attempting cross bat shots, none of the Indians appeared competent and the wickets clattered down. Anderson came back to take Tendulkar after he had raised a fighting half century with a typical Jimmy Anderson special, ripping the ball back from outside the off stump in Glen McGrath fashion and trapping Tendulkar with bat in air as the ball cannoned into his pads. Something straight from the swing bowlers master class.

Harbhajan and Kumar took to Bresnan as he tired but that just mean Broad would come back and help Anderson finish it. The winning margin was as long as a politician's list of excuses.

Bresnan and Broad celebrate victory

Broad took the man of the match awards (64, 44, 6-46, 2-30) but Bresnan (90, 2-48, 5-48) must have threatened and Bell's sublime hundred would have been very high up in the calculations. Perhaps the little brain fade he had which led to MS Dhoni's sportsmanship saving his bacon, weighed too much on the judges minds.

Where to for India? Sehwag may return from injury for the 3rd Test but its hard to see it making much difference as Mukund will make way for him, still leaving India with the problem of batting an outstanding No 3 as an opener. Dravid opening upsets the remainder of the batting order as Laxman does not have the discipline to bat so high in the order. The real problem is that India have three middle order batsmen (Laxman, Raina and Yuvraj) competing for two spots. The more settled option would be to bat Yuvraj as an opener, allowing Dravid and Laxman to bat in their usual positions. None of this solves the problem of what to do with Gambhir if he is fit.

VVS Laxman bowled by Anderson

In the bowling, for India to square the series, Harbhajan must be dropped, Zaheer Kahn must be fit and Dhoni has to explode fire crackers up the backside of Ishant Sharma. Harbhajan is not worrying the English tail, let along the top order. There is no turn - not unusual for him - but flight and variation have been non-existent. He bolsters the batting at No 8 but if you are picking bowlers on their batting ability then the team is in dire straits anyway. Mishra would be the better option as leg spinners always are against England, even an England with so many left handers. Zaheer is world class and dangerous but his fitness has made him an increasing liability. If India can get him right, he could make a difference. As for Sharma, who knows. He's gone missing in action during the first two Tests and has all the threat of a jelly in a brick throwing contest. Let's hope Dhoni can align his stars or repair the Sharma Karma before Birmingham.

As well as he bowled against the West Indies, not many would have bet that the baby bowler, Praveen Kumar, would have stood up when it mattered. Now if only some of the seniors could show the same ticker.

Of course, none of the above is relevant. The only matter that remains to resolved in this current series isn't who the best team is but rather, just how bloody good are they. India, after all, like Australia before them, can only play as well as England let them. Now that's supremacy.