Pietersen hits classic ton, India still on top

England’s chances of making a comeback into the series by winning this encounter received a double jolt at the end of the third day’s play today when both their set batsmen fell within an over of each other to reduce the tourists to six wickets down. Kevin Pietersen was Harbhajan Singh’s only victim in an otherwise fruitless day for him, where as Andrew Flintoff followed soon after off Amit Mishra’s last delivery of the day to hand back the advantage to the Indians. As Pietersen pointed out in his end-of-the-day interview, losing those wickets meant that England would now need to start thinking more from a draw’s perspective than winning the rubber.

However, if there was one cricketer who stole the thunder on a day when England had been reduced to two wickets down even before they had scored two runs, it was Pietersen. Almost forced into making the play after the early losses, the English captain had a bit of a problem when Yuvraj Singh was called on to bowl as early as the third over, but the rest of them did not stand a chance against the innovations of the batsman. Yuvraj Singh, it must be remembered has had a strange hold over the English captain, getting him out in both, the tests and the shorter format earlier, and hasn’t held back verbally either. So far, with the kind of form that Pietersen had exhibited, it looked like he had a lot on his mind, and that was been carried on to the arena.

Today, one saw a different, almost a combination of a carefree, but surprisingly determined Pietersen at the crease. Moving towards the off-stump and flicking the quick bowlers away, he quickly brought up his team’s fifty, and by the time it was time for some lunch, England was 57/2 in a weather-curtailed 12 overs that were bowled. The partnership with Alastair Cook got to triple figured after the luncheon break, but there were a couple of quick wickets after that. At 131/4, the English team were definitely staring down the barrel, and needed something inspirational from the skipper. And a couple of supporting roles from the others too.

They were treated to something more sumptuous. Pietersen kept sweeping the spinners away to anywhere in the vicinity between the fine-leg and mid-wicket, and on the odd occasion, he managed to unleash some of the most ferocious looking, and the now-patented switch-reverse-shots, in which he would change his grip on the bat handle and bat like a left-handed batsman would, just as the bowler delivered. What is surprising about this is the amount of power that Pietersen manages to generate batting with his wrong hand.

With the rate at which the runs began to leak towards the end of the second session and then at the start of the third, it was evident that Dhoni had to do something different. He opted for his tried-and-tested approach of setting one-side heavy placements (off for the quicker bowlers, and leg-stumpish for Amit Mishra), with the bowers bowling exactly to it. The run-rate did dip a little, but the wickets were still not too forthcoming. Pietersen continued to attack whenever he got a quarter of a sniff, but what would have also helped him is the fact that at the other end, Andrew Flintoff gave him solid support, and barely looked like he had any desire to get out.

Even with the defensive field settings, Flintoff barely looked like choking, and played with his bat firmly in front of the pad, thus negating any chances of bat-pad.

Pietersen got to his hundred with a rather contrastingly gentle push, and it must be said that it had been one of the better innings one would have seen in the sub-continent. But the man did not look to have been satiated too much with just a hundred, and carried on manfully to 144 before a rather close decision went against him. In a scene that resembled straight out of a slow-motion replay, he almost needed a crane to be pulled out of the ground, but ultimately, he left to a standing ovation from the sparse Mohali crowd.

Flintoff’s dismissal to the final delivery of the day’s play turned the tide in India’s favour, as they are still 170 runs ahead, and if the tourists needed to make a match out of it, they would have needed to get as close to the Indian total. With none except Matt Prior left, the possibility seems a little distant now.

Cricket, though is a funny game, as vindicated by the last two matches in one week, at Chennai and at Perth between Australia and South Africa. It teaches you to never write anyone off!