July 22: Despite a good bowling performance by Indian seamer RP Singh, England set itself in a commanding position in the fourth day of the Lords Test with a classy century from all-rounder Kevin Pietersen.
When the play resumes today India were 174 runs behind England’s total it was up to the bowlers to restrict English batsmen at a moderate total. Though Indian medium pacer RP Singh did able to remove three of the top order batsmen including Micheal Vaughan (30), Paul Collingwood (4) and Ian Bell (9), it was not enough for Indians.
Kevin Pietersen though only managed 37 runs in the first innings managed to thump a well deserve century in the second innings. Earlier in the third day, India while bowling was able to get two early wickets in terms of both the England opener Andrew Strauss (18) and Alastair Cook (17). But Kevin Pietersen and Matthew Prior consider as the last recognizing pair with a good partnership and so far gave England an over 250 runs lead.
Earlier Indian batsmen failed to make an impact in their first innings in response of England’s 298 and got all out only putting 201 runs on the board. Only Wasim Jaffer (58), Sachin Tendulkar (37) and Sourav Ganguly (34) did show some resistance to the class bowling of James Anderson and Ryan Sidebottom.
Anderson took 5 wickets and Ryan removed 4 of the Indian batsmen giving English a better chance in the match.
Though in the second innings both the English openers got out easily putting only 43 run on the board, Pietersen and Captain Michael Vaughan enjoyed a good partnership to take the score to 102 when Vaughan misjudged one of the excellent deliveries of RP Singh and lost his wicket when he was on 30.
Again RP Singh struck well in removing Collingwood and Ian Bell cheaply but Pietersen on the other end stick to the crease and made an excellent century on the historic ground Lords. Among other batsmen Matthew Prior gave a good contribution of 43 runs.
Now Kevin Pietersen (126) and Monty Panesar are on the crease. As far as Indian bowling is concerned RP Singh and Zaheer Khan are the two successful bowlers taking 3 and 4 wickets respectively.
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