England beat India while destroying their batting with the spin

England 1st innings 413 (Kevin Pietersen 186, Alastair Cook 122, Pragyan Ojha 5-143) 2nd innings 0-58 (Nick Compton 30*, Cook 18*) beat India 1st innings 327 (Cheteshwar Pujara 135, Ravichandran Ashwin 68, Monty Panesar 5-129) 2nd innings 142 (Gautam Gambhir 65, Ashwin 11, Panesar 6-81

England won vs. India by the magical performance of their spinning duo of Monty Panesar and Graeme Swann who destroyed the strong rival batting line up twice.

India managed 327 runs in the first innings followed by a dismal 142 in the second. England piled up 413 in their first innings and 58 without any loss in the second to achieve the target.

Kevin Pietersen (England) was declared ‘Player of the match’ for his majestic knock of 186 runs.

The second Test of the series ended on Monday, November 26, 2012, which was the fourth day of the game at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai.

Earlier, India started their depleted second innings at 7-117 in 33 overs, Gautam Gambhir was the lone fighter for unbeaten 53 with Harbhajan Singh at the other end at 1 runs. The batsmen initiated the day bravely by dispatching 10 runs in the very first over off the danger man Monty Panesar with a couple of fours. The party did not last longer as Hrabhajan Singh was caught smartly by Jonathan Trott off Graeme Swann for just six runs on the fourth ball of the next over.

Monty Panesar got his first wicket of the day when Zaheer Khan was caught behind by the wicketkeeper Matt Prior in the 38th over for one as the home side lost their ninth wicket at 131 runs. Gambhir did not worry about his presence in the game and exposed the last batsman, Pragyan Ojha, mostly against the lethal spin attack of the visitors. Gautam Gambhir was finally declared leg before wicket off Swann for 65 from 142 balls with 6 fours on the first delivery of the 45th over. He was the highest run scorer for India, Ravichandran Ashwin was the only other batsman who entered the double figures by scoring 11 runs.

The strong batting line up of the hosts that included Virender Sehwag, Cheteshwar pujara, Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni surrendered against the devastating spin bowling of England and were unable to touch the double figures. The entire Indian team was bowed out for 142 mere runs at their own home ground in just 44.1 overs.

Monty Panesar - Paralysed Indian batting in the match
Monty Panesar – Paralysed Indian batting in the match

Monty Panesar was the  deadliest bowler with six wickets and got the career best match figures of 11-210 runs. Grame swann chipped in with four and had a match haul of 8 wickets.

India inducted three world class spinners in the match comprising Harbhajan Singh, Pragyan Ojha  and Ravichandran Ashwin but their counterpart Monty Panesar and Graeme Swann taught them how to bowl on the sub continent wickets. The home spinners managed just nine wickets in the match and the visitor’s slow bowlers grabbed 19 scalps.

England required just 57 runs to win the match as their skipper, Alastair Cook, opened the innings with Nick Compton. They wanted to finish the match early and got eight runs in the first over as Compton hit 3 fours in the next two overs. He dispatched a six on the third ball of the sixth over off Pragyan Ojha and the quick fifty of the innings appeared on board in the 9th over.

The target was attained on the fourth delivery of the next over as England smashed 58 runs without losing any wicket. Compton was unbeaten for 30 off 28 balls with 1 six and 4 fours as Alastair Cook secured his end by scoring 18 from 30 balls.

England won the match comprehensively by a Himalayan margin of 10 wickets and levelled the four match series 1-1.


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