Raghav
International Vice-Captain
This was only the thirdever series win in England in over 75 years of Indian Test cricket history puts the entire approach of Rahul Dravid and his men in perspective. For long,Indians have been called bad tourists but this team changed the tag.
I was very disappointed when the Indians chose not to enforce the follow-on. Had the lead been just above 200 and had there been about two and half-days to go, it would have been understandable. I don't buy this theory that the bowlers were tired because they are all professionals. Surely, they would not have to bat for more than an hour or so on the final day for it would have taken England that much time to set a target, if at all.
England applied themselves well when they had to save the Test. The wicket played well but they were still six down and hardly in front at the end (in terms of the first innings lead). I understand that such decisions are usually taken based on the consensus reached by the senior members of the team but in this case they got it wrong. The follow-on decision apart, there were some really big gains from this series. Youngsters like Dhoni, Kaarthick, Yuvraj (even if he didn't play), Zaheer and R P Singh would have benefited from this tour as they got new experience. They will have many more chances to tour abroad and the manner in which the team fought it out day after day on this tour, will pay heavily in future. They will tour knowing that they can compete abroad and win. The real test of their progress will come in Australia which is their next big tour.
I was most impressed with the Indian bowling. Except for a couple of hours on the first day at Lord's, the bowlers did a great job, with Sreesanth too coming good in the final Test. Session after session, they ran in hard and did all the right things. They may not have succeeded in bowling out England on the final day but it wasn't for want of try ing and I will take that any day.
That the batting came good despite the lack of too many runs for Rahul was another bonus.
Teamwork was the key and despite there being no hundreds from the main batsmen, there was almost always a handy total put up. All of this augurs well for the future.
Your views very much invited....
I was very disappointed when the Indians chose not to enforce the follow-on. Had the lead been just above 200 and had there been about two and half-days to go, it would have been understandable. I don't buy this theory that the bowlers were tired because they are all professionals. Surely, they would not have to bat for more than an hour or so on the final day for it would have taken England that much time to set a target, if at all.
England applied themselves well when they had to save the Test. The wicket played well but they were still six down and hardly in front at the end (in terms of the first innings lead). I understand that such decisions are usually taken based on the consensus reached by the senior members of the team but in this case they got it wrong. The follow-on decision apart, there were some really big gains from this series. Youngsters like Dhoni, Kaarthick, Yuvraj (even if he didn't play), Zaheer and R P Singh would have benefited from this tour as they got new experience. They will have many more chances to tour abroad and the manner in which the team fought it out day after day on this tour, will pay heavily in future. They will tour knowing that they can compete abroad and win. The real test of their progress will come in Australia which is their next big tour.
I was most impressed with the Indian bowling. Except for a couple of hours on the first day at Lord's, the bowlers did a great job, with Sreesanth too coming good in the final Test. Session after session, they ran in hard and did all the right things. They may not have succeeded in bowling out England on the final day but it wasn't for want of try ing and I will take that any day.
That the batting came good despite the lack of too many runs for Rahul was another bonus.
Teamwork was the key and despite there being no hundreds from the main batsmen, there was almost always a handy total put up. All of this augurs well for the future.
Your views very much invited....
It ain't that easy to score 450 odd runs on a Day 5 pitch against an in form Indian bowling line-up and remember mate England were only playing with 6 batsmen and rest were five no.11's 
(Prior,Monty,Tremlett,Sidebottom and Anderson). In a sense judging by Vaughan's post match press conference he seemed quite relieved losing the series by 1-0 rather than losing it 2-0.
