Once more, unto the breach

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.
- William Shakespeare "Henry V"

The Indian team (assuming England declares overnight) has to score just over 360 runs in 90 overs to beat the Pommies in the first Test.

There are two ways to tackle this:
a) Play for a draw; bat slowly and surely, eschewing all risks
b) Play for a win; think of it as a one-day international, but with more overs and less fielding/bowler restrictions

Plan A just will not work (if you doubt this I present to you Karachi '06 and Bangalore '05 as the most recent examples). Once the Englishmen know that there is no risk of their target being attacked they will go all out, putting men around the batsmen, knowing fully well that their bad balls will not be hit to the fence and their good balls may well take some wickets. With each falling wicket they can exert even more pressure on the batsmen.

Plan B should work - the batting lineup (batsmen 1-7) is the same as the ODI lineup, with Laxman replacing Yuvraj. This situation it will not matter since Laxman's biggest problem in ODI's was that he could not accelerate as fast in the later overs as some others. Here, with an additional 40 overs in hand, that should not be a problem. Also, don't forget that he has (in the past) scored some very crucial 2nd innings knocks for the country when chasing a target, so for this time we will not miss Yuvraj as much as we may think. In addition to the 7, we also have Wasim Jaffer. So we have enough batting firepower to attack the target, utilizing the anchor-accelerator strategy that has been employed so successfully in the past few ODI wins. I suggest using Sehwag, Tendulkar, Dhoni and Pathan as the accelerators and Dravid, Jaffer, Laxman and Kaif as the anchors.

By attacking the target, they force the Englishmen to defend, thereby crating gaps in the infield, meaning that a mishit may go to a now-vacant 2nd slip, or a now-vacant short mid-off and so on.

If the Indians come out with a defensive mindset and show no inclination to go for the target I am going to be very disappointed. (Virender Sehwag will go for it, that I am sure of, I am talking about the rest of the batsmen). If that happens I shall not follow this time for a while. As it is their attitude in the field yesterday made me mad (more on that later) and this would be the last straw.

If I see Tendulkar go into that obdurate, stubborn, defensive shell that he has lately been adopting I may just blow my fuse!