Cricket
Cook, Pietersen set up England
2012-11-24 22:20
Mumbai - Alastair Cook and Kevin Pietersen saw England to stumps on day two in a
solid position on 178 for two against India in the second Test in Mumbai
on Saturday.
According to
supersport.com website, Cook (87 not out) and Pietersen (62 not out) combined for 110 runs to
draw the tourists to within 149 runs of India's first-innings total,
having bowled the hosts out for 327 earlier in the morning.
Monty Panesar ended Ravichandran Ashwin's innings on 68 to seal his 11th
five-wicket Test haul, before Graeme Swann mopped up the rest of the
wickets, including that of Cheteshwar Pujara for 135, his first
dismissal of the series after more than 1 000 minutes of batting.
Ashwin was trapped by Panesar's arm ball, while Swann beat Harbhajan
Singh (21) for his 200th Test wicket, before turning the ball past
Pujara for Prior to remove the bails.
Zaheer Khan was unlucky to be given out to a bat-pad decision by Umpire
Aleem Dar as the ball missed the bat by several inches. It left India a
four-over spell to Test England before lunch.
After the break, Nick Compton fell to Ojha for 29 and Jonathan Trott departed soon after, also to Ojha.
Harbhajan could have been given the wicket of Cook after the skipper
missed the ball playing across the line on 84, but, having been given
not out, Hawk-Eye showed another on-field umpiring error. Without the
DRS being utilised, India were simply left to rue their bad luck.
Cook and Kevin Pietersen each close on their 22nd Test centuries - both
would then share the record for an England batsman should they reach the
landmark, alongside Wally Hammond, Colin Cowdrey and Geoffrey Boycott.