Gambhir,Tendulkar target Swann

Indian batsmen have a history of treating world class spinners with scant respect.

Indian batsmen have a history of treating world class spinners with scant respect. At the Chinnaswamy Stadium,they staged a calculated assault on Graeme Swann,knowing that Englands bowling plans would lose much of their coherence if the off spinner wasnt allowed to settle down. Gautam Gambhir went after Swann pretty much as soon as he came on. In the fourth ball of Swanns second over,he skipped down the pitch and smacked him over mid on for four. If Swann thought he would have some respite when he came on for his second spell,he was mistaken India attacked him early once again,and instantly put England on the backfoot. Swanns first two balls were perfectly acceptable off breaks pitched a foot outside off stump,but Sachin Tendulkar swatted both beyond the midwicket fence.

Strauss,Bell toy with fifth bowler

England s third-wicket pair of Andrew Strauss and Ian Bell highlighted India s traditional one-day weakness,its reliance on part-timers to complete the fifth bowler quota. This is the flipside of India s awesome batting strength,and will worry MS Dhoni through the rest of the tournament,especially on true wickets such as the one at Bangalore .

The ten overs that Yuvraj Singh and Yusuf Pathan bowled between them cost India 67 runs without anything in the wickets column (though Bell was extremely lucky to stay there after his LBW referral). On the surface,67 might seem like a par effort in a match this high-scoring,but what hurt India was how easily Strauss and Bell scored those runs,without any help from powerplays. The England pair calmly picked off a boundary nearly every over seven fours and a six in the ten overs the two Ys shared employing low-risk shots like the sweep and the slog with the turn into the gap between long on and deep midwicket.