England vs India - The Recriminations

"India's fielding - about as mobile as an order of aloo gobi"

Indian supporters on Cricinfo are hurting today. A comprehensive roasting at Lords on a pretty blameless surface has rather dented the hype. No Sachin ton, India fielded like an order of aloo gobi and the stony faces on the oppo balcony spoke volumes of professional misery.

MSD in his post match interview with Athers claimed that India suffered some cruel misfortune. And he's probably right. But no-one wants The Little Master suffering from Camden Colon or Zaheer's hamstring to detract from a brilliant England win.

Pietersen, Trott, Prior and Broad all batted out of their skins at high pressure moments. The bowlers took 20 wickets on what was a good track without the help of DRS. We survived a terrible insertion on the first day when the ball was hooping round corners.

Interestingly you have to ask if Duncan Fletcher is relishing this challenge. He looked fairly inscrutable up there on the Indian balcony. But he looks like he's got a tough job to do to get India into the right frame of mind.

Zaheer looked anything but fit. In fact he looked like he'd had too many coories. Samit Patel must be kicking himself he's English because if Zaheer can get a game looking like a 42 year old Elvis while Jimmy Anderson has to slim down to Amy Winehouse size, he'd have played 100 Tests by now. (Oh - okay - he's not that good). And the rest of them didn't look in peak physical condition either. Contrast the look of the England lot - the bowlers all fresh no doubt from some shoot or other with a magazine with pink in its badge, the batsmen all looking like they've spent as much time as Tremmers on the rowing machine - and you begin to wonder whether India have some fundamental issues with team ethic and desire.

A couple of commentators have pointed to the lack of warms ups, the desultory netting, the wearing of sweaters while bowling and the general brainlessness of some of their match play at key moments (funny how Pietersen and Prior could score at will in a Test Match situation but Prior can't get it off the square in a 50 over game) and you wonder whether Dunc can turn it round or whether he's just a really clever babysitter that needs to wait for some of the egos to leave the team before he can create change.

"Whatever" Wickman says. Unless everyone is completely gone in the head (Dravid didn't look that way, and Suresh Raina looked class [if a little chubby of cheek]) there's no way that India will continue to obligingly fall over when batting and Wickman was never sure why Munaf Patel or that strange chipmunk like fellow Sreesanth weren't picked so he's expecting some sort of resurgence on Friday...