Smart stats Matt Prior’s century is his sixth in Tests and fourth in home Tests. He averages 45.40 in 66 innings, but 48.75 in 41 innings batting at No.7.
Prior’s average of 45.40 as a wicketkeeper is the third-highest among wicketkeeper-batsmen who have scored at least 2000 runs in Tests (only matches where they have played as wicketkeepers).
The 162-run stand between Prior and Stuart Board is England's best for the seventh wicket in Tests against India. Prior and Broad have been involved in a century stand on each of the last three occasions they have batted together.
Prior and Broad are now second on the list of English seventh-wicket pairs with the highest aggregate partnership runs.
Prior’s strike-rate of 85.83 in his century is the fourth-highest strike rate for an English batsman in a 100-plus knock against India.
Broad’s 74 is his seventh half-century in Tests and first against India. In the seven previous innings he has batted, he has scored a century, two fifties and three ducks.
Ishant Sharma picked up his ninth haul of four wickets or more. Four of his top six innings bowling performances have come in away Tests.
Harbhajan Singh picked up just one wicket in the match conceding 218 runs. It is the seventh occasion that an Indian bowler has gone on to concede over 200 runs while picking up just one wicket in the match.
The number of overs India will have to face in the fourth innings is the highest for them in Tests since 1980. The previous highest in the period is 109.4 overs at Lord’s in 2002 when India lost by 170 runs.
Ruthless England came down hard on wounded and battered India, first through Matt Prior’s century and then through a probing 27 overs, to end up needing nine wickets on the final day. India, though, had fingernails dug in at the edge of the cliff. Forced to bat at Nos 2 and 3 respectively, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman were made to look ungainly, but they batted out 131 deliveries between them in the final session of the fourth day. Gautam Gambhir and Sachin Tendulkar were not available to bat in their usual positions because of injury and illness respectively.
Those tuned into the match would have known that the real game on the fourth day would begin some time in the final session, when England – effectively 193 for 0 at the start of the day – would declare to leave India four sessions to bat, give or take. The journey to that point proved fascinating though. Ishant Sharma, a rhythm bowler, found his groove against a surprisingly circumspect batting line-up, reducing England to 62 for 5 and incredibly bringing an Indian win into the faint edge of the frame.
Prior and Stuart Broad then introduced India to reality, all but ruling out their chances of winning with a 162-run seventh-wicket stand. Prior summed up the England team’s attitude when he began attacking, scoring a century at a strike-rate of 85.83, although defensive fields meant he hit only five fours and a six. And Broad could do no wrong. After his unbeaten half-century, he took a wicket in the first over of a spell for the third time in this match, removing Abhinav Mukund, who once again looked solid before he sighted Broad.
Until Prior and Broad counterattacked, India did decently in the absence of the injured Zaheer Khan. It helped that England were in their shell at the start of the day even though the ball hardly swung then. During that period Praveen Kumar dismissed Alastair Cook for a rare single-digit score, and Andrew Strauss fell to his second ordinary sweep off Harbhajan Singh.
The next hour belonged to Ishant. No matter where this matches goes, the spell of 5-3-4-3 he bowled just before lunch will hold significance for the rest of the series. For starters he let Kevin Pietersen know that he was not be bullied. In the first innings, Pietersen had put Ishant completely off his line and length by walking across and towards him. Today Ishant welcomed him with a bouncer, got extra bounce and the glove. Then followed the two quintessential Ishant wickets. Ian Bell got one that left him against the angle, taking the edge. Two wickets in one over. Two overs later, Ishant got one to move in sharply to Jonathan Trott, against the slope, and hit the top of off. That ball would have got greats out.
Sixty-seven runs came in 26 overs before lunch, for the loss of five wickets. Post lunch, India weren’t as aggressive. They didn’t begin with Ishant, who had bowled 11 overs in the first session. When they reintroduced Ishant, he got Eoin Morgan with a short ball that did the batsman in for pace.
Prior, though, didn’t inhabit the shell his team-mates had. Faced with his aggression, India backed off a bit. The fielders wilted. Prior exploited the in-and-out field well. Every time he got room he drove emphatically, anything straight was punished into the on side, and potentially the biggest blow was a meaty sweep into Gambhir’s elbow at short leg, minutes before tea. The batsman had to go to the hospital for an x-ray, and came back just before stumps with news that there was no fracture.
Prior had broken India’s spirit, though. Post tea, he and Broad went into Twenty20 mode, scoring 95 runs in 12 overs. Ishant’s earlier resurgence now seemed just a minor blip. India took off their tired specialist bowlers, no longer making an effort to make England bat as long as possible. Dhoni brought himself on, making Dravid, due to open the innings in a matter of minutes, keep wicket.
That didn’t seem to affect Dravid’s concentration when he walked out after Prior’s century heralded the declaration. The openers saw off eight overs, but Broad came on to dismiss Abhinav in a fashion similar to the first innings: played on.
Like with Abhinav, England tried a repeat dismissal with Laxman, keeping their fine leg square and bowling into his ribs. Laxman pulled two boundaries along the ground. England didn’t have a first-innings dismissal for Dravid to go by. Still they did well enough to him. Chris Tremlett and Broad especially bowled superb outswingers. While the two applied themselves, there was some luck involved too, as there invariably is in such situations: they were beaten 15 times between them.
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