On This Day: India thumped by England in historic 2000th Test at Lord’s

The 2000th Test in cricket history also marked the 100th Test between India and England which was played 11 years back from 21 July to 25 July at the Home of Cricket, Lord’s in London. Though the Indian fans expected a lot including Sachin Tendulkar’s 100th century, the iconic encounter resulted in a disappointing defeat for the Men in Blue. The loss also initiated one of the darkest eras of Indian cricket as they went on to lose eight overseas games in a row.

Winning the toss, MS Dhoni put the hosts to bat. Zaheer Khan had to pull out on the first day following an unlucky hamstring injury. The struggling Indian side watched Kevin Pietersen register a ton, his first on home soil in three years. He remained unbeaten at 202 and steered the side to post a huge 474-run total in the first innings. Among other noteworthy innings, Jonathan Trott made 70, Matt Prior scored 71 and Ian Bell added 45 runs to the score sheet. For India, Praveen Kumar scalped five wickets and Zaheer left the ground after taking a couple of wickets during his 14-over spell.

India opener Abhinav Mukund started well but missed his fifty by just one run. Other Indian batters could not produce anything significant except Rahul Dravid. 'The Wall' notched a ton scoring an unbeaten 103. The MS Dhoni-led unit got bundled out for 286.

In England’s second innings, the attack of Praveen Kumar and Ishant Sharma took the hosts 6-man down until Prior and Stuart Broad turned out to be the saviours. While Prior fetched a ton (103), Broad recorded 74 runs. With England declaring the innings at 269 runs, India had a mammoth 458 runs to chase down in the final innings.

Though there were a few who believed that India could somehow end the match in a draw, the batting unit witnessed a collapse in front of the fiery attack of James Anderson and Broad. Anderson scythed through the top-order getting five wickets to his name, Broad had the rest of the job done by picking up three wickets. Only VVS Laxman and Suresh Raina did well with the bat and scored 56 and 78 runs respectively. The innings got wrapped up at 261 and England clinched a comfortable 196-run win.

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