By Abhishek Manroa
MUMBAI, India (TheSportsNEXT) December 5, 2012: India reached 90 for the loss of two wickets with opening batsman Virender Sehwag gifting his wicket away to England on first day of the third Test at Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Wednesday.
The four-match Test series is leveled at 1-1 after India won the Ahmedabad Test by nine wickets before England bounced back in Mumbai Test with a 10-wicket triumph.
The Eden Gardens pitch has been the darling of local as well as international media organizations in the past few days but the curator made a pitch which is mostly going to favor the batsmen during first three days before spinners start getting the bite from the surface. The cricket experts were of the view that fast bowlers will get some purchase out of the wicket during first couple of hours of the Test match but it would be one-way ride for the batsmen afterwards until it starts to break in the final two days.
Indian team replaced Harbhajan Singh with fast bowler Ishant Sharma was the pitch is likely to assist pacers during initial phase of the proceedings while on the other hand England included middle-order batsman Ian Bell and tall fast bowler Steven Finn in place of Jonny Bairstow and vice captain Stuart Broad.
Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni once again won the toss and decided to bat first on a pitch which may have demons in it for the fourth innings.
MSD’s opening batsmen proved the choice right with some quality shot-making during initial overs and took the total to 47 without loss from 10 overs.
It all went in India’s way until first ball of the 11thover when Virender Sehwag flicked one away to the midwicket area. Samit Patel made a good run and managed to keep the ball within the playing area by sliding on the boundary line with Steven Finn throwing the ball back to the wicketkeeper. The two batsmen easily completed two runs but Sehwag wanted the third run and both batsmen had no connection at all with Gautam Gambhir watching at the fielders while Sehwag busy in running for the third. When Gambhir asked Sehwag to go back to his crease, it was too little too late as Matt Prior made no mistake to dislodge the stumps in due time.
Virender Sehwag scored 23 runs from 26 balls and it is worth mentioning here that this is the fourth time that Sehwag has been runout with Gambhir on the other end. The last three occasions came in 2005, 2008, and 2009.
The Eden Gardens has been an ominous ground for the opening batsmen in the last few Test matches as no opening pair has been able to score a hundred runs partnership here in the last 19 innings. The last time, the opening batsmen did score a century stand at the Eden Gardens was in November 2002 when West Indian openers Wavell Hinds and Chris Gayle amassed 172 runs for the opening wicket.
With runs coming quickly for Indians, England skipper Alastair Cook decided to turn to his spinning options and soon left-arm offspinner Monty Panesar got rid of the Indian runs machine in the series Cheteshwar Pujara for just 16 runs from 48 balls as Indians were rocked at 88 for two.
As Pujara perished, the illustrious Sachin Tendulkar stepped into the Eden Gardens and the crowd went berserk hailing to the living legend.
Soon Gautam Gambhir achieved his 21st Test half century and his second in the current series as the left-hand opening batsman has started to rediscover the lost form.
Despite of some scary moments, Gautam Gambhir and Sachin Tendulkar managed to take India at lunch without losing much of the initial advantage but Alastair Cook and company would be happy with how the initial session of the Kolkata Test went.
Gautam Gambhir was not out at 50 while Sachin Tendulkar was unbeaten at one at lunch on day one.
