The third test between England and India ended in a huge win for England. England thus squared the series, which for them is quite an achievement considering they were virtually England A in this test, and they held on to the #2 spot in the rankings.

I really had a hope that the New India will rise to the challenge and win the match. The pitch seemed to be quite alright for a fifth day version, and there was enough batting depth to at least play out 2 sessions on merit and decide in the final session to go for it or not.

And to a great extent, the first session went well. Of course, the loss of Kumble was not a good one and then the big blow was Jaffer. Ideally, at lunch, we should have had Jaffer and Dravid with about 80-90 runs knocked off the 295 needed. But Jaffer was gone and Dravid was playing and missing, and Sachin was lucky to survive a few close calls. But in general, the health looked good.

Then, in a few balls after lunch, the match was pretty much wrapped up. A few wickets here and there and it was all over. Dravid made a big mistake by fielding after winning the toss, which he admitted to. But he also suggested that the top order failure caused the problem, which I agree with.

So here come the one dayers. Sachin is out with some surgery requirement. Surprisingly, Viru is still in. Anyway, let’s see how the one day series goes. Hope we thrash them, though it won’t be as sweet as thrashing them in tests, which did not happen :-(