England vs India - 1st Test: 9-13 July 2014 played at Trent Bridge, Nottingham:
This proved to be an interesting Test match despite being played on a dull pitch and ending in a draw. It looked like a subcontinent pitch, not English at all. I haven't seen such a dull ground in England before. I look forward to Tests in England because of the lush green grass and the swinging conditions.

England's grounds are very interesting. They are not same at all. We have Lord's, which is the only ground in the world to have a slope. This ground also have a legacy attached to it, so much that players are most honored to have played here. Scoring a hundred or taking five-fors means so much more here than anywhere else. England is known to have conditions suitable for swing bowlers but there are also grounds which support spin on Day 4 and 5.

We have been told that this pitch was made so batting friendly so that the ground could make more money since they are at a loss if a game ends early. But if we have pitches like this in England, no difference would remain between playing in the Indian subcontinent and playing in England. Doing well overseas would no longer mean much. Also, in their bid to make money, the grounds and the ECB could eventually lose much more than they gain, because if all Test matches end up in draws and make bowlers toil, people will eventually lose interest in Tests, and perhaps some in cricket itself.

The highlight of the game though, was James Anderson's 81 at No.11. The partnership that he shared with Joe Root turned the game around. Until this point, it was tough to tell whether India are the touring team or if England is. Their partnership of 198 is now the highest partnership in the world for the 10th wicket. Prior to this, punters around the ground could be seen excitedly using their Android betting apps or betting apps for iPhone to put their money on what appeared to be a very likely Indian win. No one could really predict what was coming next.

Joe Root scored his 4th hundred finishing on 154*. He now averages 47.17 after having played 18 Tests. He is a good find for England. Early on in his career, he has big hundreds to his name. His maiden century was against New Zealand at Headingly, Leeds, the second one was 180 vs Australia at Lord's, the third was in England's previous Test series against Sri Lanka, a big one, 200* at Lord's.

Trent Bridge has been Jimmy Anderson's favourite venue, having taken 53 wickets here at the average of 19.24. This is his highest among all grounds he has played on. He is also the highest wicket taker at Trent Bridge. The next five behind him, Bedser, Trueman, Warne, Statham and Snow have all retired so he is in no danger of losing this title anytime soon. After these fellows, Stuart Broad follows with 25 wickets.

Catch the 2nd Investec Test match between England and India live from July 17-21 at 11 am local time (10 am GMT, 3:30 in the afternoon if you are in India), coming to you from Lord's.

Thanks for reading. This is Sanya, signing off.

Samit Patel, Johny Bairstow, Nick Compton  and Joe Root celebrating England's win

This was an amazing series. England have registered their first Test series win in India after '85-'86. This one is very special, because India is among the top rivals for England at the moment. The battles between these two teams have been heated and emotional in recent years. England last visited India during the 26/11 attack on Taj hotel in Mumbai. Kevin Pietersen was the captain at that time and some of the England players, like Andrew Flintoff and Stephen Harmisson were reluctant to go back to India to play Tests. It wasn't a tour England would like to remember. The same Jimmy Anderson who bagged the Man of the Match award today, bowled crap on the previous tour. I remember I was expecting better because he had started to learn bowling well in the sub-continent, showing promise in Sri Lanka at the end of '07. Nevertheless, his bowling has come of age and he is no longer the bowler English fans dread seeing in the sub-continent. The opposition batsmen dread him now.

It feels wonderful to not only have beaten India, but to beat them at spin. England has long been known to struggle against spin bowling and as a fast bowling superpower, lacking a quality spinner. But, Monty Panesar and Graeme Swann have changed that. Swann has been performing consistently throughout his career and having Monty gives England an advantage on pitches that favour spin. England have James Anderson, Steven Finn, Monty Panesar and Graeme Swann who are all threatening. Having this kind of variety gives England the potential to be world beaters.

Kevin Pietersen with the signatures of himself, Cook, Compton, Trott, Bell, Patel, Root, Prior, Swann, Anderson, Bairstow and Flower

This is the series England players would like to remember when things are hard. These kind of contests keep Test cricket alive and make cricketers desire the England jersey. The changes England have made deserve applauding. Picking Monty after the 1st Test, dropping Broad and picking Joe Root for the final Test have proved to be perfect decisions. I'm happy with all of these. Broad is an asset in the shorter forms of the game, but I've never really liked seeing him in Tests and Monty Panesar is definitely worth a go, every time England tours India. Samit Patel also seems to be fitter for the shorter formats. With the way Joe Root batted, he showed the potential Alastair Cook did when he made his debut in the same country, India, at the same age of 21, though Root is almost 22.

In the final game, I am personally most impressed by Root and Pietersen. This pitch was the reverse of what we usually see. It was toughest on Day 1 and flattened as the game progressed. Both Root and Pietersen scored 73 in the 1st innings. This was KP's slowest innings, with the strike rate of 39 and Root batted with a strike of 32. Root played the most deliveries, 229, followed by KP, 188, followed by Prior, 142 and finally Trott, 133. On a pitch like this, it takes great concentration to bat. I was waiting for an innings of patience from KP. England will be very happy with this series as Bell and Trott, the two batsmen who have been struggling, scored centuries in the end.

I think the main difference this time has been in the approach of England and the credit goes to Captain Cook. To me it seems that the Board makes the captain and the captain makes the players and the team. England reflected what Alastair Cook is made of. Before this series, Kevin Pietersen looked unlikely to play but Cook held meetings with him and persuaded the ECB to take him back. I think he knows how to bring a unit together. His own batting and behaviour show a quiet determination and strength of character, which is what the whole team has showed. He is not loud, but he is anything but soft.

Some regard baseball as the most conservative sport next to cricket, others settle for golf or tennis. All of them are changing and so is cricket. Called as the "Gentleman's game", cricket consisted of whites, sun and hard work for fast bowlers. The change started with one-day cricket and became more prominent with the birth of Twenty20 cricket. One-day cricket brought the colours, day-night games and most importantly, the reduction to 50 overs from 450 overs. Twenty20 brought in the moolah, popularity, a prospect of exposing non-playing nations like US to cricket. I like all these changes, including the one I'm going to talk about, except Twenty20. One thing which has really bashed conservatism in cricket is nudity. Yes, nudity. Not many cricketers have posed nude but Jimmy Anderson is someone who has done it thrice so far. The first time he did it, it was for Cancer charity, with fellow England cricketers Alastair Cook and Stuart Broad. The second time, he was  supporting Give Up Clothes for Good, a TK Maxx, HomeSense and Cancer Research UK campaign for children’s cancer research www.tkmaxx.com. Have you shopped for clothes in TK Maxx? Well, they’d rather go naked...

The third time, he posed for gay lifestyle magazine, Attitude. Here's what he said:

Quite a few England cricketers have joined twitter. Jimmy Anderson (jimmyanderson9) first tweeted on 27th June 2009 while Swann uses the name swannyg66. Tim Bresnan's (timbresnan) first tweet (28th September 2009) read this:

Just joined twitter to get my own back on Jimmy and Swanny for their constant abuse!!

Bressie, Jimmy and Swanny were involved in banter every now and then but the reason why Bressie had to apologize just after 3 days of tweeting was something else. Photoshoppers on twitter morphed an image of his and made him look overweight (as if he wasn't already), which led Bressie swore at the tweeter! Images of Swanny and Jimmy were also morphed during all this banter and these 3 cricketers tweeted about the images they liked.


Azeem Rafiq's tweets:

 What a fucking farsee. ECB prove it again what incompetent people are working for them.

 John Abrahams is a useless wanker.

England captain, Andrew Strauss offered some advice:

You need to take it on the chin and learn from it because if you don't there are plenty of other people who are going to do it better than you. Players should be aware that what they write on Twitter is going to be seen by people they might not want it to be seen by.  We have had a number of occasions of that. There is also a right way and a wrong way to react to disappointment and venting your frustration on Twitter is not the right way to do it, especially if you have been in the wrong.

I don't see why he needed to do that. This young cricketer could play for England soon but he would have been more likely to play if he hadn't indulged in something as silly as this. He has been banned for a month and by the way, John Abrahams is the manager of the England Under-19 squad. Azeem Rafiq, who was born in Pakistan on 27th February 1991, moved to England in 2001.

Other England cricketers on twitter are Kevin Pietersen (kevinpp24), Steven Finn (finnysteve). Kevin claims that he is "back on twitter". I don't know when he had joined earlier. Out of the 32 KP is following, 11 are Indians. I've counted "IndianPremierLeague" and "Force India F1 Team" as Indians. He is also following Chris Gayle, Mark Boucher, Shane Warne, Gordon Ramsay, Jemima Khan, brother Bryan Pietersen, Darren Gough and the current lot of England cricketers except Swanny. Paul Collingwood (@pcollingwood5) had joined but deleted his account after a while. Twitter, which is sort of a micro-blogging site, is the only social networking site I like but it's not a place for cricketers. It didn't take long for Colly to learn that. Lots of former England cricketers and County cricketers are on twitter too. Notably, Matthew Hoggard is on twitter but he has only tweeted twice, once in 2007 and once in 2009, both through twitterfeed. Will we see a tweet in 2011?

Follow jimmymycrushie on twitter! Until next time, take care. Cheers!