What a change of fortunes for these two teams. India have shown just how potent they can be in their own conditions, charging to a 126-run win. Yes, conditions are foreign for England, but you can't blame the pitch - India scored 300 on it! Just as England's seamers profited at home this summer, so India's spinners have put their team in the ascendancy. After Raina and Dhoni had carried their team to a daunting 300 for 7, Ravindra Jadeja and R Ashwin shared six wickets, for just 69 runs, and England collapsed from 111 for 2 to 174 all out. Read all about their win in Andrew Miller's report, and stick with us to find out what the captains and Man of the Match have to say for themselves.
"Did someone say that India's attack is even more popgun than it was in England?" asks Mark Kidger. "Sometimes that kind of attack can be harder to score off than a team of quicks (remember the 1983 World Cup final where India's "terrifying" dibby-dobbers destroyed the mighty West Indians?)"
"Whomping ... what kind of word is that?" Quite possibly a made up one, Peter Cole, but I think you'll agree it conveys the message.
Our feedbackers have offered a collective "welcome to India, it's payback time", in their thousands. Well, quite.
"@Peter Cole - A quick google search reveals: "whomping: Strike heavily; thump. Defeat decisively: "I whomped him good" Thanks for that, Durgaprasad Sundaramurthy. I knew that English major would come in handy some day.
"It was an important toss to win, we saw at the end that the ball kept low," says England captain Alastair Cook. "But India out-performed us today. We're going to have to learn from this, and that's the beauty of a five-match series. We know that [playing spin] is an issue, and that's a skill thing. We're going to work hard on that in the next couple of days."
MS Dhoni is Man of the Match. "We were a bit speculative about the dew, and there was a fair amount the last few nights, so that's why we played three seamers and two spinners. The new rules made the batting a bit tricky. We batted well, though we lost a few wickets at the wrong time. On wickets like these, if you're batting in the afternoon it can be a bit slow, and at times you have to keep your head down and survive. If you dont make too many runs at first, that's ok because you can make up for it later. I think most of us were looking for a score of about 250 or so, 260 would've been a good score. There was no dew tonight, but if there had been it would have been easier for the batsmen. Jadeja has improved his game a lot, and it was good to see Yadav come in and bowl fast."
And there you have it. Thanks for joining us today, there's been a mountain of feedback and we've tried to include as much as possible. Before you go, don't forget that there's always the match gallery to look at, and be sure to check in later for some post-match analysis. Until next time, goodbye.
JW Dernbach b Ashwin 2 (9m 5b 0x4 0x6) SR: 40.00
END OF OVER:36 | 8 Runs | ENG: 174/9 (127 runs required from 14 overs, RR: 4.83, RRR: 9.07)
- Jade Dernbach2 (4b)
- Steven Finn18 (18b)
- Ravindra Jadeja7-0-34-3
- Ravichandran Ashwin8-0-35-2
Spin from both ends, here's Jadeja. Or, Sir Ravindra Jadeja, as our feedbackers have named him
END OF OVER:35 | 3 Runs | ENG: 166/9 (135 runs required from 15 overs, RR: 4.74, RRR: 9.00)
- Jade Dernbach1 (3b)
- Steven Finn11 (13b)
- Ravichandran Ashwin8-0-35-2
- Umesh Yadav5-0-32-2
Ashwin comes back to deal with the tail.
END OF OVER:34 | 9 Runs 1 Wkt | ENG: 163/9 (138 runs required from 16 overs, RR: 4.79, RRR: 8.62)
- Jade Dernbach0 (1b)
- Steven Finn9 (9b)
- Umesh Yadav5-0-32-2
- Praveen Kumar8-1-38-1
SR Patel b Yadav 16 (30m 18b 2x4 0x6) SR: 88.88
END OF OVER:33 | 4 Runs | ENG: 154/8 (147 runs required from 17 overs, RR: 4.66, RRR: 8.64)
- Steven Finn4 (6b)
- Samit Patel12 (16b)
- Praveen Kumar8-1-38-1
- Umesh Yadav4-0-23-1