Declared, and 387 chased

England chose to bat at Chennai on 11 December 2008 and made 316. India made 241. England declared at 311 for nine and India, needing 387, got there for the loss of four wickets in 98.3 overs. The result line reads India won by 6 wickets, on the fifth day. The card is Test number 1898, and the coverage headline beneath it asks whether it or the 2001 Test on the same ground was the greater.

Three hundred and sixteen

Andrew Strauss made 123 from 233 balls and Alastair Cook 52, an opening stand of 118. Ian Bell 17, Kevin Pietersen, the captain, 4, Paul Collingwood 9. England were 229 for five at the close and Matt Prior took them to 316 with 53 not out. Harbhajan Singh three for 96, Amit Mishra three for 99, Zaheer Khan two for 41 from 21 overs, nine of them maidens.

Full scorecard: India v England, 1st Test, Chennai, 11–15 December 2008 →

Two wickets in one over

Virender Sehwag was bowled by James Anderson for 9. Then Gautam Gambhir was leg before to Graeme Swann at 34 in the fourteenth over, and Rahul Dravid leg before to Swann at 37, three balls later. Swann was on debut and it was his first over in Test cricket. Wikipedia’s entry has him as the second man to take two wickets in his first Test over, after Richard Johnson.

Tendulkar 37, VVS Laxman 24, Yuvraj Singh 14: 137 for six. MS Dhoni 53 and Harbhajan 40 put on 75 for the seventh wicket and India were all out for 241, 75 behind. Andrew Flintoff three for 49, Monty Panesar three for 65, Swann two for 42 from ten overs.

The declaration

England lost Cook, Bell and Pietersen for 43. Strauss and Collingwood then put on 214, both making 108, Strauss from 244 balls and Collingwood from 250. At the close of the third day England were 172 for three, 247 ahead. Strauss was fourth out at 257 after lunch on the fourth day, Collingwood sixth at 277. Prior 33, Swann 7, Steve Harmison 1.

Prior was ninth out at 311 in the 106th over, soon after tea on the fourth day, and Pietersen declared rather than send Panesar in. Zaheer three for 40, Ishant Sharma three for 57. Extras were 32, ten of them byes. The target was 387 with four sessions to go.

The chase

India were 50 in 5.3 overs. Sehwag reached 50 from 32 balls with eight fours and two sixes, and the opening stand was 100 in 108 balls. He was leg before to Swann for 83 from 68 balls, eleven fours and four sixes, at 117 in the 23rd over, and India closed the fourth day at 131 for one, Gambhir 41.

Dravid was caught behind off Flintoff for 4 at 141. Gambhir made 66 and was caught by Collingwood off Anderson at 183. Laxman 26, caught Bell bowled Swann at 224 in the 57th over. Then Tendulkar and Yuvraj, 163 unbroken. Yuvraj 85 not out from 131 balls. Tendulkar 103 not out from 196 balls.

The same ball

The match-flow line says Tendulkar reached 100 off 196 balls. His innings line says 103 from 196 balls. The two figures together mean the 196th ball he faced took him from 99 to 103, and that it was the last ball of the match: a four that was his hundred and the winning runs at once. The card does not say that in words. It gives two numbers that can only mean it.

Swann bowled 28.3 overs for 103 and two wickets; Panesar 27 for 105 and none. Sehwag is the player of the match, for 83. The umpires were Billy Bowden and Daryl Harper. The series line reads India led the 2-match series 1-0, which is how it finished.

A fortnight after Mumbai

The tour page on Wikipedia gives the dates. The attacks in Mumbai were on 26 November. The last two one-day internationals were cancelled, England flew home and then trained in Abu Dhabi, decided on 7 December to play the Tests, and arrived in Chennai on 8 December.

The Tests had been scheduled for Ahmedabad and Mumbai and were moved to Chennai and Mohali. Tendulkar’s entry says he dedicated the hundred to the victims, and that it was his third fourth-innings Test hundred and the first in a win.

India’s largest chase remains 406 at Port of Spain. The card’s coverage headline calls this one India’s record home chase, and nine years earlier the same ground had seen a chase of 271 fail by 12.

What the card holds

Two hundreds for Strauss and one for Collingwood, on the losing side. Two wickets in a debutant’s first over. A declaration at 311 for nine with the tenth man unused. An 83 from 68 balls at the top of a chase of 387. And a 103 not out whose two ball counts, set beside each other, show that the hundred and the win arrived together.

••••••

No. 15 in Declared, a series of 15.

Later todayThirty-five, in 114 balls