Low after the high

A convert

Pietersen shimmied down the pitch for Jadeja's second half-pitcher and thumped it to midwicket for three. Then, forcing Jadeja to drop it short again by leaving his crease early, he skied one powerfully over the bowler's head for four. At the other end, Jonathan Trott, who had survived a great appeal from Sharma early on, looked to sweep his way out of trouble. But after taking a closer look at Pietersen dealing with the tweakers, especially Piyush Chawla just before lunch, Trott was a convert.

Chawla, right arm googly, had managed to fool Trott by bowling six non-turning leggies in the previous over. But KP knew better. He dumped one such non-turner to the mid-on fence before picking Chawla's comfort ball early and firing the googly near cow corner. Trott liked what he saw, so he skated down to Jadeja next over and played the stroke of the morning session — a whistling on-drive for four. KP and JT took lunch unbeaten on 28 each, having galvanised the attack with plenty of ball-point dots on the scorer's sheet. It could have ballooned into a recovery in the second session had Trott not nodded off.

With no runs on offer and negligible room to work the ball for singles, Trott, six short of his fifty, shouldered arms to one of Jadeja's stump-to-stump balls. He lost off. Eighteen overs hence and just 37 runs added, a suffocated Pietersen played his first reckless stroke of the day -- an uppish flick through square off Jadeja. That short-square-midwicket man had waited all day.

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