CRICKET:Monty Panesar began to find some purchase from the Lord's pitch late yesterday as the evening sunshine embraced the ground in its warmth.
Bowling from the Nursery End, as left-arm spinners have done habitually to exploit the slope, he had begun to disturb the surface of a fourth day pitch. On a day that brought little of the vicious curling swing that had brought such first-innings success for the England duo of James Anderson and Ryan Sidebottom, the England captain Michael Vaughan was seeking an alternative. In the Sikh of Tweak, and a fifth day pitch, he might well have found it.
With 22 overs of the day remaining, Panesar struck the blow that, weather permitting, could well have put his team on the road to victory in the first Test as India begun the chase, rarely a likelihood on wearing pitches, of 380 to win.
Sachin Tendulkar, 34 years old and 16 runs into what may prove to be his last Test innings at Lord's, already had three fours to his name, the last of them, from Panesar, a stroke of genius as he stretched impossibly forward and from the front foot cudgelled a shortish ball along the ground to the extra-cover boundary.
He propped forward to the next delivery though, bat tucked behind pad, playing for the spin when none eventuated. Panesar roared his appeal and, after Steve Bucknor finally nodded his approval, set off on a triumphal gallop towards the Tavern stand.
Once before, in Nagpur for his maiden Test wicket, Panesar had managed the same and Tendulkar subsequently autographed the match ball: "Once in a blue moon".
Should the sky be clear, check the colour then, although that may not be possible. As the day was being played out at Lord's there lurked off the Isles of Scilly a swirling swathe of filth that should it make its way to London today, and could condemn the match to a dank draw.
India closed last night on 137 for three, with Dinesh Karthik on 56 and Sourav Ganguly, missed on 12 from bat and pad at silly mid off by Ian Bell as he propped stiffly forward to Panesar, on 36.
The prospect of scoring a further 243 to win is out of their compass and the chance of survival all day as an alternative (which would require some pretty stodgy batting) unlikely. In what is the first of a three Test series, a drop of rain will do no harm.
England's situation had been created by an exuberant ninth Test century from Kevin Pietersen, his third at Lord's and an innings of panache. He might have been run out when 34, but thereafter until he dragged a shortish ball onto his stumps to give the left arm seamer RP Singh the fourth of his five wickets, he smashed a tally of 134, including 16 fours and a six.
Guardian Service
