July 27, 2007	Friday	Rajab 11, 1428

NOTTINGHAM (England), July 26: As rain continued to pour down onto the Trent Bridge outfield, just a day before the start of the second Test between England and India, the tourists were gearing themselves up for another stop-start contest.

Bad light and rain came to India's aid on the final day of the first Test at Lord's, where with England needing just one more wicket for victory, the opening fixture in a three-match series was abandoned as a draw.

Now, with huge pools of water visible all over the Trent Bridge, the chances of the match starting on time on Friday — even if the rain stops — appear to be diminishing by the minute although, with other parts of the country victims of flooding, it looked as if Nottingham had enjoyed an escape by comparison.

“It's a lot tougher on the batting side,” Dravid said at Trent Bridge here on Thursday. “The bowlers can always come back, get a bit of a breather. It's not an ideal situation, it can upset the momentum, upset the rhythm of a game.

“But you've got to get used to it. When you come and tour in England, part of it is getting used to the conditions.

“You do expect to have certain interruptions. Days can be very long. We are playing matches sometimes until 7:30pm (1830GMT) and that poses challenges of concentration and starting the next day at 11:00am.

“That's part and parcel of touring in England. Something you need to embrace, enjoy and get used to.”

Another feature of the Lord's Test was the amount of chat on the field with England wicket-keeper Matt Prior particularly talkative.

“There is going to be a little bit in international cricket especially when in close games like this that go to the wire and when teams know they've got to give everything to win or save a Test match on the last day,” said Dravid.

“Tempers can get a bit frayed but otherwise the relationship between the two teams has been good.”

England captain Michael Vaughan defended Prior's conduct by saying: “Most keepers are a pretty similar character. He's doing well at the minute and I guess it's part of his armoury to try and get one up on the batsman.”

Vaughan also defended himself against accusations that a slow over-rate had hampered England's victory chances at Lord's and said, that even with the forecast bad weather, he'd no intention of changing tack at Trent Bridge.

“Could we have rushed through three, four or five overs? Maybe we could have done, but would we have got the right fields in place to get wickets? Maybe not. All these things are done with the benefit of hindsight.

“It's a bit of chit-chat at the end of a great game of cricket. I thought we played a really good game and were just unlucky not to get that last wicket.”

Meanwhile, India middle-order batsman Saurav Ganguly passed a fitness test on his stiff back on Thursday.

“Everything is fine,” India team spokesman Rufus Rockey said.

Dravid told reporters earlier that Yuvraj Singh had been included in a 12-man squad as cover for former captain Ganguly.

“He (Ganguly) is feeling a lot better than he did yesterday and so we’ve picked him as part of the 12,” Dravid said.

Teams (from):

ENGLAND: Andrew Strauss, Alastair Cook, Michael Vaughan (captain), Kevin Pietersen, Paul Collingwood, Ian Bell, Matt Prior, Chris Tremlett, Ryan Sidebottom, Monty Panesar, James Anderson, Stuart Broad.

INDIA: Wasim Jaffer, Dinesh Karthik, Rahul Dravid (captain), Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, V.V.S. Laxman, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Anil Kumble, Zaheer Khan, Rudra Pratap Singh, Shanthakumaran Sreesanth, Yuvraj Singh.

Umpires: Simon Taufel (Australia) and Ian Howell (South Africa).

TV umpire: Nigel Llong (England).

Match referee: Ranjan Madugalle (Sri Lanka).—Agencies