Well, England can't have dreamed of such an emphatic win to start the 2011 battle for global Test supremacy! From KP's double-century to the Prior-Broad recovery and then Jimmy Anderson's 'five-for', it was almost all England. Oddly, it was only Strauss, Cook and Morgan who failed to impress and we know their class will manifest itself again later in the series, which must send shivers down MS Dhoni's spine.
It was great to see a big crowd on a final day, assisted by free tickets for under-16s enjoying the start of their summer holidays, and they were treated to an exciting finale. In truth, it was unlikely to be anything other than an England victory, with Gambhir injured and Tendulkar clearly unwell, but a few rash shots and some superb bowling meant it was all done and dusted by 5.30pm, with plenty of overs to spare.
I wrote last week that history suggests that when England win the series opener, they do not lose the series, so already they have a psychological as well as physical advantage. This match also has uncanny parallels with the Lord's Test nine years ago. Then, England opened with 487 (2011: 474-8 dec), bowling out India for under 300 before batting again and declaring. In 2002, India were left with an impossible target of 568 and fell short by 170 runs. For KP, read Nasser Hussain; for Prior and Broad, see Vaughan and Crawley; for Anderson, read Hoggard. Indeed, no English players survive from that match, while Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman and Zaheer Khan had seen it all before.
So is there any hope for India this summer? Of course they can hope their off-colour batsmen will be back to 100%, and the same for Zaheer Khan. Abhinav Mukund is a talented opener but India really need Sehwag to return and bully the England seamers. Nice to see Dravid making another hundred, and Raina has the ability to both up the tempo and knuckle down to anchor a run chase, but India have a long tail and if Broad, Anderson, Swann and Tremlett can dismiss the big guns, it'll be Sri Lanka all over again. I now think England really will claim that status of World No.1.
