September 5, 2002	Thursday	Jamadi-us-Saani26,1423

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LONDON, Sept 4: India’s comprehensive demolition of England to level the series 1-1 at Leeds makes the fourth and final match starting at The Oval Thursday a tantalising prospect.

If India win, and the momentum in the series has shifted towards them after losing the first Test by 170 runs, it would be their first Test series victory outside the sub-continent since they beat England in 1986.

A victory would also be even sweeter for Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar who is set to play his 100th Test match.

Only Kapil Dev (131), Sunil Gavaskar (125), whose record of 34 Test centuries is within Tendulkar’s sights after he notched his 30th with a masterful 193 at Headingley, and Dilip Vengsarkar (116) have played more for India.

Tendulkar’s achievement is even more amazing considering he is yet to reach his 30th birthday.

The ‘Little Master’ made his debut as a precocious 16-year-old against Pakistan at Karachi in November 1989, making 15 in his only innings of a drawn match.

Since then he has proceeded to take apart most of the world’s bowling attacks.

Tendulkar, however suffered a difficult start to the Test series, making just 16 and 12 in the first Test at Lord’s, as England’s Matthew Hoggard produced a wonderful spell of second innings swing bowling.

Since then the pendulum has swung back in India’s favour as an injury-ravaged England team watched their advantage fall away when Rahul Dravid with a stubborn 115, captain Saurav Ganguly (99) and Tendulkar (92) all produced runs to draw the second Test at Nottingham.

In the third Test the visitors scored their highest-ever score away from home, notching up 628 for eight thanks to Dravid’s second century of the series (148), Tendulkar’s 193 and Ganguly’s swashbuckling 128.

They also finally unleashed their spin twins, leg-break bowler Anil Kumble and off-spinner Harbhajan Singh in tandem, after they had chosen to play only one spinner at Lord’s and Kumble was injured at Trent Bridge.

Kumble and Harbhajan ran through the England line-up, taking 11 of the 20 wickets between them.

Both must be looking forward to bowling on The Oval pitch, which has been tailored this season for Surrey’s overseas import — Pakistan’s Test off-spinner Saqlain Mushtaq.

England have also not been helped by several injuries to key players.

They began the Test series without their two main strike bowlers — Andrew Caddick (side strain) and Darren Gough (knee) — and have since lost all-rounder Andrew Flintoff who needs an operation to fix a groin injury.

While Caddick did come back for the third Test he looked rusty.

England’s batting line-up has also suffered.

Graham Thorpe, beset by personal problems, chose to take a break from all forms of cricket after the Lord’s victory, Mark Butcher had only just returned from knee surgery and opening batsman Marcus Trescothick fractured his thumb in a domestic one-day game for Somerset.

Meanwhile, England Wednesday released all-rounder Ronnie Irani from the squad.

Teams:

England (from): Nasser Hussain (captain), Mark Butcher, Andrew Caddick, Dominic Cork, John Crawley, Ashley Giles, Stephen Harmison, Matthew Hoggard, Robert Key, Alec Stewart, Marcus Trescothick, Alex Tudor, Michael Vaughan.

India (likely): Sanjay Bangar, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly (captain), Vangipurappu Laxman, Ajit Agarkar, Parthiv Patel, Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan.—Reuters/AFP