First Test, Lord's (day five): England 474-8 dec & 269-6 dec beat India 286 & 261 by 196 ru |
Anderson celebrates with Stuart Broad and Kevin Pietersen
James Anderson took 5-65 as England stormed to a 196-run victory over India on the final afternoon of a thrilling opening Test at Lord's.
Needing nine wickets to win, England made the perfect start, removing three batsmen in the morning session, and taking the key wicket of Sachin Tendulkar after lunch.
With Suresh Raina (78) offering stern resistance, India battled through to tea with five wickets intact, but Chris Tremlett removed captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and the tourists' tail offered little resistance.
With a packed Lord's cheering every ball, Stuart Broad took the last Indian wicket, sparking jubilation among the England players as they seized a 1-0 lead in the four-match series.
And Andrew Strauss's men will head to Trent Bridge on Friday full of confidence after getting the better of the world's top-ranked side in a match which proved entirely worthy of the 2,000th Test in history.
India remain the number one side in the Test rankings but England will supplant them if they can win the series by a two-match margin.
With all four results still possible at Lord's, fans queued up outside the ground from as early as 2.00am to get their hands on a ticket for the final day's action.
By 9.30am, 90 minutes before the start of play, hopefuls arriving at St John's Wood Underground station were being turned away, while the ground was beginning to fill with those lucky enough to get a seat.
It took half an hour for the first wicket to arrive but when it did, it was the crucial one of first innings centurion Rahul Dravid.
Dropped on 35 by Ian Bell at short leg, Dravid added only one more run to his score before he flung the bat at a wide away-swinger from Anderson and was pouched by Matt Prior behind the stumps.
VVS Laxman eased his way to a 53rd Test fifty and was looking comfortable at the crease before he was tempted into a cross-batted pull at an Anderson loosener and pulled straight to Bell at mid-wicket and departed for 56.
In the next over, three wickets became four as Gautam Gambhir was deceived in the flight by Graeme Swann and trapped leg before wicket for 22. The left-hander asked for the decision to be reviewed by the TV umpire but replays showed there was no edge onto the pads to save him.
Enter Tendulkar, for perhaps his final Test appearance at Lord's, but after getting off the mark with a four off his toes, he looked out of sorts having missed much of Sunday's fourth day because of a viral infection.
Tendulkar walks off after what may be his last Test innings at Lord's
He was lucky to survive an lbw appeal from Broad - one of a number of poor decisions by umpire Billy Bowden - and was dropped in the slips by England captain Strauss, but then missed a straight ball from Anderson and was trapped in front for 12 off 68 balls.
Raina and Dhoni added 60 either side of tea, raising the prospect of India saving the game, but the new ball did the trick for England, with Chris Tremlett finding the edge as Dhoni limply dangled his bat away from his body and Prior doing the rest.
The last four wickets fell in quick succession as Harbhajan Singh skied an attempted pull and Broad clean bowled Praveen Kumar.
An Anderson away-swinger drew an edge from the excellent Raina, before Broad (3-57) completed an excellent personal performance by snaring Ishant Sharma leg-before.
England will take enormous satisfaction from their victory, having been put in to bat under heavy clouds on the first day.
They achieved an imposing first innings total of 474-8 declared, thanks mainly to man-of-the-match Kevin Pietersen's 202 not out, bowled India out for 286, and recovered from a second innings wobble to set them a record target.
Then, on a riveting final day, all four frontline bowlers played their part in seeing them to a memorable triumph.
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