Winger Virender Sehwag made a searing run down the right flank, dribbling across Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh before passing the ball to centre-forward Sachin Tendukar to tap in neatly for a goal. Celebrations followed, Sehwag and Tendulkar exchanging high-fives before their team mates jumped on them and pinned them down. The scoreline at the end of the warm-up session read 3-1, Tendulkar’s team winning easily.

Not strangely, everyone playing that hard-fought game of makeshift football on Thursday morning was happy with the result. Team India have learnt to celebrate each other’s successes, and even the Chennai victory against England was a by-product of that sentiment of bonhomie.

In seven years after India’s historic Kolkata win against Australia, no team has ever enforced the follow-on against India. And after Chennai, another trend is likely to emerge — sporting declarations may soon be out of the equation, while fourth innings targets will probably be a safe 450-plus.

For the moment though, it’s the PCA Stadium in Mohali for the second Test, where another win or even a draw would suffice for India to get officially certified as the world’s number two team.

Operation Sehwag

England have had little time to recuperate from the damaging loss in the first game, and skipper Kevin Pietersen is already in two minds about an XI that can at best contain the same Indian team that had played the first Test. High on England’s agenda is finding a way to tackle Sehwag, and it wouldn’t be surprising if short bowling, and a man on the third-man boundary for the upper-cut, comes into the picture again.

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