Last rites performed

After Munaf fractures ankle,India end tour just the way they began.

At Sophia Gardens on Friday,England found a 21-year-old batting sensation in Jonathan Bairstow,and a long-term captaincy prospect and heir apparent to their 34-year-old Test skipper,Andrew Strauss,in Alastair Cook. It was also a day when Jonathan Trott,after 23 Tests,34 ODIs and a Cricketer of the Year Award,came to know how it feels to hit the ball over the fence while wearing the England colours in a non-T20 game. For Team India,however,the discoveries were less pleasant. Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni,who already knew by Friday that misfortune never comes alone,also realised there is no upper limit to it it can keep coming.

He lost his fifth toss in a row and saw the weather interrupting the match yet again. And as Munaf Patel fractured his ankle and was stretchered off just before the crucial powerplay overs,Dhoni understood that the timing and extent of injuries can only get worse. By the end of the game,as the team lost by six wickets after scoring 304 (their highest total on this tour across all formats) he knew that like winning,losing was also a habit an-extremely-hard-to-get-rid-of habit at that. But the tour result of 4-0 in Tests,1-0 in T20,and 3-0 in ODIs (one match was abandoned and another ended in a tie ) didnt see Dhoni making the obvious inference.

Up next: fast-food cricket

At the end of a mentally scarring and physically exhausting two-plus months stay in England,he didnt see the logic of taking a break. He admitted to having sore fingers and a twisted ankle,but was quick to add that the four days between him returning home and Chennai Super Kings first Champions League game was enough time for the body to recover. Anyway its just four T20 games in 10 days, said the worn-out skipper,who used to be as fresh-faced as the days young hero Bairstow not too distant in the past. Like the Dhoni of 2005,Bairstow swaggered on to the big stage,with ease and without awe.

The redhead,wide-eyed Yorkshiremans 21-ball 41 was the kind of knock that captains pray for in games with Duckworth-Lewis complications. Chasing a revised target of 241 off 34 overs,England might as well have put their calculators aside and thrown away the D/L sheets as Bairstow,coming in at No.5,snatched the closely poised game far away from the Indians. He hit the fifth ball that he faced on international debut over mid-wicket for a six,before sending two more during the course of his brisk knock into the city of Cardiff. The three powerplay overs bowled by Ravindra Jadeja,RP Singh and R Vinay Kumar cost the visitors 41 runs as Bairstow and Ravi Bopara went aerial on India.

But again,Bairstow and Bopara just did what Ian Bell and Trott were already doing. They merely took the wheel from the top-orders hands and didnt let the speedometer needle drop. While Bells assault was expected,Trotts seemed to have surprised the Indians. Since the start of the ODI series,Trott has been spending hours with batting coach Graham Gooch,training relentlessly to get under the ball and lift it towards the fence. It was Goochs innovative drill that helped Trott get over his groundstroke fixation. The coach would stand close to Trott at the nets and drop the ball in front of his bat. Trotts task was to play it in the air. Like everything else during this tour,it was the better-prepared team that invariably tasted success.

Fresh challenge

In a few days time,England will be in India for a five-match ODI series. For the likes of Cook and Bairstow,it will be a fresh challenge. However,having seen coach Andy Flowers meticulousness on this tour,it is only natural to assume that the blueprint for the India tour would have been in place for long,and players with sub-continental skills already ear-marked for the upcoming project.

For India,meanwhile,the plan to exact a revenge can wait. They need to get hold of 15 fit men first.