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India face uphill task at Lord's

Sachin Tendulkar’s failure to realize his dream of scoring a century at Lord's left India facing an uphill task on the fourth day of the first Test against England on Sunday.

India needs 243 more runs to win the first Test after Kevin Pietersen hit his ninth Test century to help guide England to 282 in its second innings.

Set a target of 380 to win, India was 137/3 at Stumps on Day Four after England took the key wickets of opener Wasim Jaffer and Indian captain Rahul Dravid for single figures and Tendulkar (16).

Jaffer was the first man to go for, sending a catch to the diving Pietersen at mid-wicket off James Anderson for eight.

That brought Dravid to the crease, but he had made only nine before debutant Chris Tremlett trapped him leg before wicket.

Dravid can consider himself unlucky though, with the ball appearing to hit him outside the line of off-stump.

Tendulkar may never get his name on the Lord’s honours board thanks to Monty Panesar, who idolised the Indian batsman as a child, got the Little Master out late for 16 runs to set England up for a potential win Monday.

The wicket was an almost carbon copy of Panesar’s first in Test cricket, with Tendulkar the victim on that occasion too.

It was left to Dinesh Karthik to settle the Indian innings. The opener scored his fourth Test 50 late in the afternoon with a single to mid-on off Panesar.

Karthik batted through until stumps, finishing not out 56, with partner Sourav Ganguly unbeaten on 36.

Ganguly performed the role of senior batsman to perfection, guiding his younger partner through the tough last three hours of the day and remained 36 not out.

The unbroken partnership between the two for the fourth wicket was already worth 53 runs, from only 98 balls, and the run rate of 3.34 showed the positive intent of the Indians.

Source-Cricketzone.com