England v India - Day 4 (Second Test)

After a memorable day when Trent Bridge, so often a haven for swing bowlers, saw 417 runs scored by a ferocious England batting attack, England are now odds on (4/11 best price) to go on and remove the possibility of defeat with India in the 4 match test series.

Bell's (left) innings, along with fifties from Kevin Pietersen, Eoin Morgan and Matt Prior, led England from a defect of 43 runs to lead of 378 at stumps. For a long time it looked set to be a repeat of the last two days when Andrew Strauss saw a tentative prod to an Isant  Sharma  carry to MS Dohni but England took control after that with Bell in superb touch as he motored to fifty off 72 balls with successive fours off Sharma.

Following on from a boundary filled session in which Pietersen motored onto his 50 and then 63, the talking point of the day occurred when Bell – Having assumed that the ball was dead and the session was over when Praveen Kumar didn’t believe he’d saved a 4 -  went to the non-striker's end, jogging at first and then walking, when Abinau Mukund took off the bails.

After a prolonged period of booing from the Trent bridge crowd the two teams held talks during the interval and India captain Mahendra Dhoni sportingly agreed to withdraw the appeal.

The sight of Bell running onto the field turned jeers into cheers and he scored 22 more runs before he was caught at slip off Yuvraj Singh, before shaking hands with several Indian players when leaving the field.

India did get back into a rhythm of sorts - England lost Morgan and Jonathan Trott - batting down the order because of a shoulder injury - to the new ball but a quick-fire partnership of 102 between Prior and Tim Bresnan (47 not out) leaves it being only a matter of time before India go two down in this series - Only once in the last nine Tests at the venue has there been a successful chase of more than 200 and India are still yet to score more than 300 in this series, so batting for 2 days is out of the question and a weakened batting line up won’t be lasting for too much longer given that it should be cloudy all day today and for most of tomorrow.

As far as today’s play is concerned, England will not be in a stopping mood with 90 overs today and tomorrow and it may be worth taking 4/5 about bet 365’s offer that they won’t lose a wicket before 108 overs. That’s 7 overs of today’s play before losing a wicket which is more than fair given the touch the two batsmen are in. Also, take Ladbrokes’s offer of 466 runs or more before the fall of the seventh wicket.

Advice

2 pts 466 runs or more before the fall of the seventh England wicket (5/6 Ladbrokes)

1 pt fall of seventh England wicket at 108^th over + (4/5 Bet365)