Desperate India plan to liven things up in Nagpur

P62 Alastair Cook

10 December 2012

England expect the pitch for the crucial final Test against India to have all the placid virtues of a spitting cobra. The tourists left for Nagpur, in the dead centre of the country, today after inflicting a heavy defeat on their opponents for the second successive match to take an astonishing 2-1 lead in the series.

Needing to win to avoid the ignominy of a series loss at home for the first time in eight years, India would seem to have no choice other than to prepare a surface that will yield a positive result one way or the other.

Graham Gooch, England’s batting coach, said: “I don’t think I’m giving anything away by saying it’s going to be a result pitch in Nagpur. If I was India I would want a result pitch to take my chances.

“I’d rather have a pitch that produces a result than one that produces 600 v 600. So we know it’s likely to be a pitch where it will be tough for the batsmen, with the ball turning. But after our last two performances we can go there with confidence and we’ve got to make sure we bring our A game to Nagpur.”

England have been a side transformed in the last two matches in Mumbai and Kolkata, which have brought two of their most significant victories following their failure in their first match in Ahmedabad.

They appear at last to have absorbed the lessons that Gooch and the head coach, Andy Flower, have been teaching throughout a year spent on the largely slow, turning pitches of Asia — mainly the importance of patience.

“I don’t believe for one minute that the guys think the job is done,” said Gooch. “We’re 2-1 up with one to play. We want a positive result in Nagpur. Our guys have a good work ethic.

“They’ve taken on board all the help they’ve been given about playing the turning ball and how to shape their technique, how you can score runs in these conditions.”

England completed a seven-wicket victory in the Third Test at Eden Gardens yesterday. Their pursuit of 41 runs to win was not quite as routine as it might have been as they lost three wickets for eight runs. But there were no more alarms.

India’s press lambasted their team today for their failings, hardly able to understand the sudden turnaround in the fortunes of the sides in the past two weeks. Although the selectors made three changes in the squad for the Nagpur match, questions continued to be asked about some of the survivors, including MS Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar and the team’s coach, Duncan Fletcher.

In Kolkata, however, the criticism was slightly diluted by the rioting which forced the abandonment of a football match between the bitter local rivals in the I-League, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan.

With more than 100,000 in the decrepit, shared stadium, a Mohun Bagan player had to be rushed to hospital after being struck by a missile and his team-mates refused to come out after half-time. Supporters from both sides went on the rampage outside the ground and brought the city to a halt.

It was much more sedate over at Eden Gardens, although the England players celebrated last night. They might well have toasted their captain, Alastair Cook, who scored his third hundred of the series and has now, unprecedentedly, scored hundreds in his first five matches as captain.

Gooch, who has worked with Cook since he was a young teenager at Essex, said: “He’s led this team really well. He’s still learning as a captain and he’ll continue to develop. English cricket is lucky to have a player like him at the head of their team.”

Desperate India plan to liven things up in Nagpur

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