Day 2 of the Lord's Test - KP and PK

The second day of any test match is supposed to be the day for the batsmen and yesterday proved to be no different. England piled on the runs against an hapless Indian bowling attack minus Zaheer Khan. Kevin Pietersen brought up his third double century of his career while Praveen Kumar made it to the Lord’s honours board for his five wicket haul. In short day two was the KP-PK show.

KP

Kevin Pietersen (202*) who ended his drought with a century in English soil after three years struggled early on and was very circumspect. His century was the slowest he has scored in his career, and it was a mature, unimaginative, and gritty century that we don’t associate Kevin Pietersen with. However his second century was scored the usual KP way as he raced to his second 100 runs in just 110 balls. It was a treat to watch KP, and as an Indian supporter there is nothing worse than knowing that you’re enjoying the knife that is cutting your team apart. KP along with Trott, Bell, Prior and Swann turned the Indian bowling to pulp and with a daunting score of 474 on the board, India have a mountain to climb.

PK

Praveen Kumar, the lone bowler in the Indian camp who looked good, bowled his heart out. And I mean that literally! He bowled a total of 40.3 overs (more than the Indian spinners) and managed to scalp 5 English wickets. He swung the ball like a banana and one couldn’t help but wonder just how much more effective PK would be if he just had a yard of extra pace. With an economy of 2.61, he kept the flow of runs tight and has been the lone positive in the Indian bowling.

Captain Cool – MSD bowling

The Indian team without Zaheer Khan (who according to a press release should be available for the second innings, though that looks highly unlikely) looked like a toothless tiger and the bowling from Ishant Sharma and Harbhajan Singh was anything but average. Ishant bowled short on a pitch that offered swing while Harbhajan was having a day to remember. MS Dhoni being the lone medium pacer in the team decided to take the role of the fourth seamer (the role that Ganguly used to do in the past teams) and he almost got KP out with his first ball after lunch. Must say that Dhoni bowled much better than Ishant Sharma and looked more likely to pick up a wicket. Dhoni now has evolved into the ultimate all-rounder with the task of wicket-keeping, battting, captaining and bowling on his shoulders! Watching Rahul Dravid keep wickets when Dhoni bowled was like going back through time, and it was one of those days when all the interesting things happened in cricket.

Dravid with the keeping gloves

India finished the day 17 for no loss still trailing by 457 runs. So with the third day being a bright sunny day and looking to be ideal batting conditions, the Indian batsmen must surely enjoy it. So with the task being cut out for India, we have a spectacular test match on our hands.