Cricket: Test cricket alive and well

Stuart Broad. Photo / Mark Mitchell

And they said test cricket was dead.

After being revived in spectacular fashion for its 2000th match at Lord's, it was bristling with life and excitement on the first day of its 2001st outing yesterday. There were wickets galore, a belated and hugely important flurry of runs by England, a spat or two and a rip-roaring contest in the making.

If the Trent Bridge pitch was a touch too sporting, bowlers the world over would say it was about time. The ball swung throughout, seamed a little less and provided a prolonged test of method and application.

Had England possessed more of the latter, they might have survived to make more than 221 all out. Then again, they might have made many fewer but for a rumbustious ninth-wicket partnership between Stuart Broad (whoever said he should be dropped ought to be clapped in irons in the tunnels running beneath Lord's) and Graeme Swann.

In 15 action-packed overs, England kept beating the bat but never repeated the success they managed with the first ball of India's innings when Abhinav Mukund drove Jimmy Anderson to gully. India finished at 24 for one.

Swann was taken to hospital for an X-ray on his hand, hit when he was out, but in this innings at least he may not be the difference for England. MS Dhoni won the toss and India, who came into the match under a cloud as gloomy as that over Nottingham, must have felt it lifting as the morning and afternoon wore on.

Indian seamers Praveen Kumar, Ishant Sharma and Sree Sreesanth all acquitted themselves with purpose. There had already been a scare or two by the time in the sixth over that Alastair Cook was out. He pushed forward to Sharma, was beaten by some movement and declared to be lbw. A review would have saved him - but there are no reviews. It was like the old days again.

The wicket of Kevin Pietersen might also have been lost before the break. Kumar forcibly disagreed with the decision of umpire Marais Erasmus not to give Pietersen out lbw.

To see him berate the umpire, nose to nose, was at the least unedifying. To see Harbhajan Singh act as the peacemaker and usher away Kumar was astonishing. Harbhajan has plenty of previous when it comes to misbehaving.

England's innings was wrecked in the two-hour middle session. Pietersen, disturbed by a loose flap above the sightscreen at the pavilion end, was caught at third slip. Strauss had played 12 balls without scoring and was out to the next as he tried needlessly to break the shackles with an airy drive to Kumar. His best test score of the season remains 32. Like this shot, it is not good enough.

His demise led to two more wickets in rapid succession, Eoin Morgan for his second duck in two matches, beaten by a ball moving away, and Matt Prior edging a peach of a ball to second slip.

A minor recovery was halted in its tracks when Tim Bresnan was squared up by Sharma and wonderfully caught by Rahul Dravid leaping to his left. Ian Bell, who had enjoyed his share of good fortune but also left good balls with some aplomb, played a rash square cut on the stroke of tea.

At 124 for eight, England looked doomed.

Broad and Swann decided they had to chance their arm and in doing so they forced India to lose their discipline. In 70 balls came 73 runs.

Both scythed to wonderful effect and India made the mistake of dropping too short, too often.

Broad might have recognised himself in these bowlers.

They were crucial runs and they enhanced another lovely day at the cricket.