England v India: Bresnan’s Edgbaston haul puts England in control

Tim Bresnan and Stuart Broad shared eight wickets as England moved into a dominant position on day one of the third npower Test at Edgbaston.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s counter-attacking 77 threatened to redress the balance, after India had collapsed to 111-7, but the tourists’ 224 all out appeared inadequate by the time Andrew Strauss (52 not out) and Alastair Cook had replied at stumps with 84 without loss.

Dhoni, previously out of form with only 49 runs from four attempts in a series India trail 2-0, engineered a run-a-ball stand of 84 with Praveen Kumar for India’s eighth wicket.

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Even so Broad (4-53) and Bresnan (4-62), both so pivotal in England’s victory at Trent Bridge last week, cashed in on favourable conditions.

Yorkshire’s Bresnan said: “It was a very good day for us, we would have taken that bowling in these sort of conditions and being none down as well is fantastic.

“It is a collective effort really, it doesn’t really matter who gets the wickets as long as we take the wickets and we did that today.

“We gave away some boundaries early on but we got back into our bubble and did the right things. We got the three wickets (before lunch) which is always nice if you can get a four-wicket session.

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“It (the pitch) really didn’t do too much. The pitch is playing all right so hopefully we can get stuck in and get a lead.”

Bresnan also dismissed the suggestion that the England bowling attack had struggled in the evening session as Dhoni started scoring regular boundaries.

“I don’t think we lost the plot, it is a patience game and there is always going to be a partnership down the bottom – but I think 224 on this pitch is great for us,” he said.

“You are under pressure to take wickets but that is not the way we go about things, we just do what we can do and hopefully stick the balls in the right are as often enough and that is how we build the pressure up.”

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Broad gave the hosts a perfect start by dismissing Virender Sehwag for a first-ball duck, and soon returned to also take the prize wicket of Sachin Tendulkar.

Bresnan saw off Gautam Gambhir and Rahul Dravid as India faltered with the loss of three wickets for 16 runs in the half-hour before lunch – and he then nipped out VVS Laxman too, the second of three more batsmen to fall for the addition of only 19 in early afternoon.

Sehwag, in only his second innings in the past three months following shoulder surgery, was shunted straight into this match.

But he tried to leave his and Broad’s first delivery and was eventually given out via a DRS review when Hotspot indicated the ball had brushed his top glove. An immediate return on Strauss’s decision to bowl first under cloudy skies on a green-tinged pitch.

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England, who can usurp India at the top of the world Test rankings with victory, were then shut out by a second-wicket stand of 51 between Dravid and Gambhir.

Broad and James Anderson found regular new-ball swing, but Dravid and Gambhir left and drove well until Bresnan dried up the runs in a spell of 6-2-8-1 from the pavilion end.

But Gambhir inside-edged an attempted off-drive at Bresnan on to his leg-stump, and the Yorkshireman capped a fine morning’s work with a wonderful delivery which appeared to be angling in but held its line to knock back the often immovable Dravid’s off-stump.

In between times, Broad snared the wicket of Tendulkar, with the master batsman pushing defensively to Anderson at third slip.

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The session was easily won by England – and when Anderson got in on the act after lunch, bowling Suresh Raina with an inswinger, it seemed India’s collapse would be terminal.

Bresnan took another apparently key wicket when Laxman’s pick-up pull carried all the way to fine-leg, before Amit Mishra edged some Broad swing behind.

But Dhoni had a point to prove, and soon set about the England seamers. England seemed rattled as Kumar played some adventurous shots too. But Bresnan stuck to his guns, and it paid off when England’s second successful DRS procedure of the day saw Kumar go caught behind to an attempted hook.

It took only six overs after tea to conclude the India innings, Dhoni finally flailing an edge to slip where Strauss held a good catch – and then Cook somehow clinging on to a full-blooded force off the back foot at silly-point to account for a disbelieving Ishant Sharma.

Cook and Strauss, with a 76-ball 50 with a high boundary count of 10, survived the evening to leave England in control.