Trent Bridge

Zaheer hasn't fully recovered for the start of the second test match, and the excitable Sreesanth - resplendent with his pink hair, by Tony and Guy - is given the new ball with Praveen Kumar. Otherwise both teams are unchanged

According to the children's rhyme, Friday's child is loving and giving, and that could be a fair description of Sreesanth's bowling. Trent Bridge has a reputation for supporting swing bowling, and seeking to maximise that advantage Messrs Kumar and Sreesanth bowl very full to the England batsmen, who tuck in with a series of drives and clips off the pads. Within 10 overs, England have 50 runs on the board. Ishant Sharma is summoned, and he promptly gets Andrew Strauss to edge behind. Nevertheless, Jonathan Trott bats steadily until lunch; and then until tea; and then until the close. It's 350-5 (Trott 135*) at close of play. The ball does not swing all day.

Criclet has a funny way of playing tricks on cricketers, and on the second day it is all change - the ball swings. Although Praveen Kumar is pulled out of the attack by Billy Bowden for running down the pitch in his follow through, Sharma and Sreesanth run through the England lower order, so that they are bowled out for 415. Sitting in the TMS commentary box, Henry Blofeld remarks that the match is delictately poised on a placid batting pitch.

It remains so, as over the next couple of days, as India and England respectively score 359 (Mukund 133, Broad 5-75) and 249 (Broad 75, Harbhajan 6-28) respectively, in a pair of unremarkable innings. India have got to score 306 to win.

But perhaps that balance was always destined to skew, when the shiny cricket ball was given to James Anderson. In his very first over, he traps Abhinav Mukund leg before wicket. Rahul Dravid is able to see out the over, but in Anderson's next over, Gautam Ghambir is dismissed in the same manner, such that Sachin Tendulkar is brought to the crease to rapturous applause. He gets off the mark with a boundary off his first ball through the covers; a prologue for the splendid innings which is to follow. However, the Indian innings is what Bob Willis calls a staccato affair, as one by one the sub-contitenters fall to the hair-gelled duo of Anderson and Stuart Broad.

All except Sachin Tendulkar - he quickly reaches fifty, and powers through the sixties and seventies. That hundredth hundred looks inevitable; but then something happens. A lapse in concentration? Perhaps. Graeme Swann is bowling round the stumps, and lands one on the line of middle stump. The ball turns and bounces, striking the little master on the flap of his front pad, still in front of middle; the England fielders appeal with a raucous alacrity, turning to Umpire Bowden for a response. He ponders a moment; no trouble about the line, but what about height? The ball the flap of Tendulkar's pad, but then, Billy thinks, Tendulkar is short. With that slightly embaressed look, he raises his crooked finger to send Tendulkar on his way. The Indian team, the Indian supporters and perhaps all of the Indian viewers are horrified to note Hawkeye's projection that the ball would have bounced over the stump. The decision would clearly have been reversed, had the full DRS been in operation. Bowden's unfortunate mis-decision marks the beginning of the end for the Indian effort, and the innings subsides to 188 all out.

Within an hour, Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh issues the following statement to the waiting press:

"I believe in England they have a saying for this situation: we have been hoist by our own petard. We have lost this cricket match because the full DRS was not in operation, at our request. Sachin Tendulkar, the jewel of Indian batting, has been robbed of his rightful crown.

We were duped by the duplicitous schemes of the ECB, who persuaded us to argue that Hawkeye technology should not be part of the DRS decision making process. We have immediately petitioned the ICC to make the full use of Hawkeye compulsory for the remainder of the series. In the meantime, we have suspended coach Duncan Fletcher for failing to point out to us this clear and present danger to Indian cricket."

Flair's flares

Sachin Tendulkar pumps his fist in celebration as he comes back for a second run, to move to the landmark century. And as he arrives back at his crease, his eyes meet the beginning of a remarkable series of fireworks, paid for by the Indian Institute of Splendid Batsmen (IISB). One after another, bolts of fire are launched over the heads of the slightly puzzled members, sitting before the famous Lord's pavilion. Finally, a crescendo - the fireworks meet in the sky to read a message for the little maestro: "WELL DONE SACHIN - SPLENDID EFFORT OVER THE YEARS".

Such is Sachin's excitement, however, that he is deceived by the following ball from the excellent Stuart Broad, which creeps through the little chap's defenses to chip his off stump. As if disappointed by Tendulkar's dismissal, the umpires call close of play ten minutes early, because of fading light, but even in that North London gloom, Stuart Broad's smile is as white as a polar bear as he contemplates his five wicket haul, together with the corresponding inscription of his name on the Lord's honours board. At close of play on day one, the match is well poised with India on 312-9 (Tendulkar 100, Ghambir 112, Broad 5-63).

The tension is high on the morning of day two. Lord's is abuzz with the news that overnight, Christopher Martin-Jenkins was summarily dismissed by Test Match Special producers, following revelations in The Guardian that he once wrote a column for The Times, which is a Murdoch newspaper. With just thirty minutes to go, he is reinstated following a special appeal by Jonathan Agnew on his Twitter account. With the TMS commentary line-up is sorted out, conversation in the media centre turns to the state of the match. Can Andrew Strauss withstand Zaheer Khan's penetrative left-arm swing? The question becomes academic, though, as before play begins Zaheer twists his ankle playing Australian rules football on the outfield in the team warm-up. He is out for the series, and with the left-armer unable to bat, the Indian innings is closed at 312 all out.

Without Zaheer, there is relatively little for the English batsmen to worry about, and sadly, the cricket on day two is fairly unremarkable. Before the day is out, Alistair Cook has reached his nineteenth test match century, Jonathan Trott has ground his way to his seventh and England close on 362 for 2. The boredom is only broken when Kevin Pietersen tries to hit Harbhajan Singh into the nursery ground, but only succeeds in cracking one of the panes of glass in the media centre. The author of this column finds this remarkable, as he is given to understand that the panes have been designed to withstand blows from cricket balls travelling at over than 60 mph.

In a positive step, England choose to press on through the third day. Commentating on Sky TV's coverage, Nasser Hussain explains the England camp's thinking: "The likes of your Dravids, your Sehwags and your Tendulkars, they won't want to be batting against Graeme Swann on a turning pitch with India 300 runs behind." That theory is finally put to the test when England declare on 606 for 6 (Cook 125*, Trott 125, Pietersen 123, Harbahjan 5-182). However, India bat well to close on 110-1, before play is brought to a premature close by a thunderstorm travelling up from the South West.

The fourth day is also somewhat dull; but in a good way, because England are predictably good. Under clouds as dark as a Hallowe'en night, James Anderson makes early breakthroughs, leaving Tendulkar exposed to the middle order; but just as he starts to break free against Anderson and Swann, Stuart Broad comes on to bowl a tight spell. Thus Tendulkar is resstricted to a couple of singles an over. Finally, the diminutive middle-order batsman is dismissed for the second time in the match by Stuart Broad; and somehow, it feels as if England have control of Tendulkar. The spell has been broken, Tendulkar's time is nearly done and it is time for world cricket to go in a new direction. It's difficult to be sure, but three hours later the Lord's crowd is given the slightest hint of that new direction, as Stuart Broad bowls out Harbhajan, to take his tenth wicket in the match, and to win the match for England with a day to spare.