A paradise for pace bowlers
After a poor display in the first Test, India will face an uphill task at a venue which has heavily favoured pace bowling in recent times
England produced an excellent all-round performance to win the first Test by a huge margin of 196 runs. Injury-hit India, who were outclassed with bat and ball, will go into the second Test at Trent Bridge fully aware of the fact that another win for England would mean a serious threat to their No.1 ranking. On the other hand, England will be wary of India's ability to bounce back immediately after a defeat. Traditionally poor starters on tours, India have fought back to win the second Test against South Africa and the third Test against Sri Lanka in the last two years after being 1-0 down. On their previous England tour in 2007, India won the second Test at Trent Bridge following a narrow escape in the first Test at Lord's. However, Zaheer Khan, India's best bowler on that occasion, is likely to miss the second Test this time, making it a tough task for India to mount a comeback.
Among English venues, Lord's and the Oval have traditionally been batting friendly. This is not quite the case with Trent Bridge, the venue for the second Test. Since 2005, it has proved to be one of the toughest batting venues in the world with only Sabina Park having a lower runs-per-wicket figure. While batsmen have found the going very difficult at the venue, pace bowlers have enjoyed the friendly conditions. Trent Bridge has witnessed 13 five-wicket hauls in the 10 Tests it has hosted since 2000. On the other hand, there have been only 15 centuries in 10 games there, a century-per-Test rate much lower than other venues in England. Although English pace bowlers have a better record at most home venues as compared to their overseas counterparts, visiting bowlers have been able to match up to the home bowlers more often than not at Trent Bridge.
Ground | Matches | England (Wickets/avg) | Visiting team(Wickets/avg) | England (5WI/10WM) | Visiting teams (5WI/10WM) |
Trent Bridge | 10 | 146/27.00 | 121/30.73 | 8/1 | 5/0 |
Old Trafford | 9 | 121/28.15 | 88/36.84 | 4/1 | 3/0 |
Lord's | 24 | 336/28.41 | 242/41.36 | 11/0 | 12/2 |
Edgbaston | 10 | 119/31.58 | 99/35.96 | 3/0 | 1/0 |
Headingley | 9 | 118/32.58 | 152/29.69 | 3/0 | 5/0 |
Oval | 11 | 118/34.64 | 114/37.61 | 3/0 | 4/0 |
The batting difficulties at Trent Bridge can be understood from the innings-wise stats at the venue. The average in the first innings (33.69) is the lowest among all grounds in England except Edgbaston. While the second-innings average is also low, the third and fourth-innings stats clearly indicate that batsmen have found it very hard to impose themselves in Tests at Trent Bridge. The third-innings average (27.08) and fourth-innings average (21.40) are the lowest among all venues with only Headingley and Edgbaston having similar third-innings stats. The number of centuries in each match innings at Trent Bridge also drops sharply from nine in the first innings to two in the second innings. In sharp contrast, Lord's and the Oval have been much better venues for batting as the match goes on. Old Trafford, in particular has demonstrated a tendency to flatten out in the final innings, and has an average over 45 in Tests played since 2000.
Ground | Matches | 1st innings | 2nd innings | 3rd innings | 4th innings |
Lord's | 25 | 41.16, 25/34 | 31.35,14/30 | 35.22, 18/34 | 35.17, 3/17 |
Oval | 11 | 41.92, 7/24 | 35.37, 8/17 | 31.32, 5/11 | 37.72, 2/5 |
Headingley | 10 | 36.58, 10/9 | 36.32, 7/13 | 27.14, 2/13 | 28.53, 1/5 |
Trent Bridge | 10 | 33.69, 9/14 | 31.97, 2/16 | 27.08, 3/12 | 21.40, 1/3 |
Edgbaston | 10 | 30.94, 4/10 | 38.06, 8/17 | 27.47, 4/13 | 35.25, 1/4 |
Old Trafford | 9 | 36.36, 6/14 | 30.14, 7/6 | 27.87, 4/8 | 45.43, 4/4 |
The 196-run win in the first Test at Lord's was England's 11th at the venue against India. After winning only four out of 23 Tests at Lord's between 1984 and 2000 , England have won 13 and lost just three of the 24 Tests played there since. Although their recent record at Trent Bridge is not as awe inspiring, it is still an improvement over their earlier performances. England won and lost an even number of Tests at Trent Bridge till the 1990s (11) and this trend continued in the 1990s too as they won and lost two Tests. However, since 2000, they have won five and lost three Tests. After the loss to Australia in 2001, England won three of their next four Tests at the venue including a three-wicket win in the fourth Test of the 2005 Ashes. Following consecutive losses to Sri Lanka and India in 2006 and 2007, England have been undefeated since at Trent Bridge, with massive wins over New Zealand and Pakistan. Another noticeable trend at the venue has been the fall in batting averages of England and visiting teams in the last decade. While England's average has fallen from over 40 in the 1990s to 30.28 since 2000, visiting teams' average has dropped from 33.41 to 28.40.
Period | Played | Won | Lost | Drawn | W/L ratio | Batting avg | Bowling avg |
Overall | 55 | 18 | 16 | 21 | 1.12 | 33.95 | 30.82 |
Till 1990s | 37 | 11 | 11 | 15 | 1.00 | 33.78 | 30.84 |
1990s | 8 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 1.00 | 40.36 | 33.41 |
2000-2011 | 10 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1.66 | 30.28 | 28.77 |
India, who have not lost in their last three visits to Trent Bridge, will be reassured by the fact that the ground has been a happy venue for their top batsmen. Sachin Tendulkar, who struggled with his fitness in the previous Test, has been superb at Trent Bridge, scoring nearly 500 runs at an average over 78 with a century and three half-centuries. Rahul Dravid, who became Test cricket's second-highest run-getter during his century at Lord's has also been impressive at the venue, with an average of 53 in six innings. But VVS Laxman, whose form generally tends to get better as the series goes on, will do well to improve on an otherwise ordinary record there.
Batsman | Innings | Runs | Average | 100/50 |
Andrew Strauss | 11 | 267 | 24.27 | 0/2 |
Kevin Pietersen | 9 | 293 | 32.55 | 1/0 |
Alastair Cook | 7 | 121 | 17.28 | 0/0 |
Ian Bell | 5 | 37 | 7.40 | 0/0 |
Sachin Tendulkar | 6 | 469 | 78.16 | 1/3 |
Rahul Dravid | 6 | 268 | 53.60 | 1/1 |
VVS Laxman | 3 | 90 | 30.00 | 0/1 |