Indians lack the spirit required to seize series

The most extraordinary aspect of this first day's play was that India did not appear to be up for it. Ten days ago at Headingley, they had played out of their skins and comprehensively outplayed England in conditions which had been entirely foreign to them. As a result they began this final Test with an excellent chance of winning a Test series away from India for the first time since they had beaten England in 1986.

One would have thought that if ever a side had gone into a Test match with their sleeves rolled up for action, this was it. Sourav Ganguly, their captain, must be getting progressively more miffed at the reputation his side have acquired outside the boundaries of India. Sachin Tendulkar, his trump card, has been coming in for criticism for being unable to win more matches than he has for his country. He, too, should have been on his toes as never before.

Nasser Hussain spun the coin, Ganguly called heads and it fell tails. Suddenly the toss is not longer quite the evil monster it used to be for Hussain and it will have taken him rather less than the blink of an eye to decide to bat. The last moment India were on level terms with England on this first day was when the coin was in the air. After that, it was so one-sided as almost to be lopsided as far as the respective mental approach of the two teams was concerned.

Like the England bowlers at Headingley, Zaheer Khan and Ajit Agarkar bowled too short and wide of the off stump and the fielding quickly took on that careworn, threadbare appearance that usually comes to sides when the opposition are past 500 with the sun shining and plenty of wickets left. Ajay Ratra, back behind the stumps because the 17-year-old Parthiv Patel's knee had not recovered, set the tone with a display which was plenty less than inspirational.

The combined ineptitude reached its zenith when Michael Vaughan embarked on a single to mid off from a drive against Agarkar. He had reached the halfway mark when his partner, Mark Butcher, decided that this was not a sensible course of action and refused. While Vaughan scampered frantically back towards his crease, Ganguly threw somewhat half-heartedly to Ratra, who took the ball with Vaughan still short of his ground.

It looked as if Vaughan must be run out but it took Ratra an age to get the ball to the stumps and when his hands arrived alongside the bails it was still an appreciable time before they came off. After watching interminable replays, Neil Mallender, the third umpire, correctly gave Vaughan the benefit of the doubt.