da bet7k： Dileep Premachandran comes up with the plays of the first day of the Trent Bridge Test between England and India

da blaze casino： Dileep Premachandran27-Jul-2007

At work right from the start; Zaheer Khan utilising conditions well to pick another wicket © Getty Images
Friday and 13: The difference between the two teams at Lord’s wasKevin Pietersen, and India were desperate to prevent him wreaking thatkind of havoc again. Sreesanth came close with a magnificent delivery thatsquared him up, only for the back of the bat to save England’s battingtalisman. But there was to be no lengthy reprieve, with Rudra PratapSingh, the unlikely Lord’s hero, darting one back to trap him in front.Pietersen had made 13, and that too on a Friday. Not that we’resuperstitious or anything.Grand Old Duke of York: When Zaheer Khan announced his arrival witha splendid yorker to Steve Waugh at the ICC Knockout in Nairobi in October2000, it spawned a few headlines. Faced withYorkshire’s pride, Michael Vaughan, at Trent Bridge, Zaheer reprised thoseyoung tearaway days with a vicious bouncer. Vaughan’s evasive action waslate, and he was clanged on the helmet. A crisp clip for four looked tohave redressed the balance, but then Zaheer came round the wicket toentice the edge with one that moved away a touch. Notch one up for theémigré Duke.Straight as a Robin Hood arrow: He may not have been out there toolong, but Pietersen gave a glimpse of his undoubted class with a gloriousstraight drive off RP Singh. The mid-on and mid-off fielders barelybothered to jog after it.Flail and Grab: With so much grass on it, this wasn’t really apitch tailormade for Anil Kumble. But when thrown the ball, he was soonhitting the spot and asking questions with the bounce. Matt Prior hadtaken 18 balls to get off the mark, and when he saw one tossed up justoutside off stump, he set himself up for a big flail through the covers.This time though, Kumble had got some turn, and the outside edge wasbrilliantly taken to his left by Rahul Dravid, who these days fields atslip only when his fellow Bangalore boy is bowling.Media attack: This was very much a pitch made for the old-fashionedEnglish seamer, the sort of surface on which a Geoff Arnold or a Chris Oldwould have thrived. In the media centre too, there were a couple of likelysuspects. Angus Fraser led the line admirably at a time when Englishcricket was nowhere near as strong as it is now, and there was also DerekPringle, whose ability to extract sideways movement from steeple-heightmade him a discomfiting prospect on such pitches. And in the Indiandressing room, there was Venkatesh Prasad, who utilised such conditionssuperbly on his way to 15 wickets in 1996.Wolf Blass Wines: It’s a sign of our commercial times thatadvertising space goes to the highest bidder, but there’s somethingslightly ironic about an Australian wine getting so much hoarding space ata venue where you have a stand named after [Harold] Larwood and [Bill]Voce, the architects of Douglas Jardine’s Bodyline strategy. Then again,Larwood himself emigrated to Australia, where he died 12 years ago.