London, Sept 11: India and England will face-off again at Lord's on Sunday amidst chances of of rain. England is ahead at 2-0 and is in a dominant position.
At best, India can win the next two games starting with Lord's and draw level. Dhoni said that his team is always high on motivation though the results have been poor.
The tour has turned out to be a nightmare and a distant precedent can be seen in India's visit to Australia during 1999-2000 when Sachin Tendulkar's men lost all the three Tests and won just one among the eight ODIs of the Cartlon and United Series that also featured Pakistan, reports The Hindu.
At rain-swept Chester-le-Street and in the Oval, India had those little moments but England has reigned. “We need to perform together,” Dhoni said while individual sparks emanated from Parthiv Patel, Ajinkya Rahane, Ravindra Jadeja and R. Ashwin at different points in this series. On Friday, the top-order collapsed, Dhoni and Jadeja revived and the spinners made the English batsmen nervously twitch. In the end it just did not add up.
Dhoni's counterpart Alastair Cook declared that his team wants to seal the series. England does not want to be satiated with just the Tests. The team made that mistake after winning the Ashes and Australia won the limited overs jousts at 6-1.
In the lead-up to the Oval match, the Indian players took in the sights of London ranging from the Big Ben to the House of Commons. On Saturday, the team opted for rest and England's players too put their feet up. A change from cricket's grind is most welcome and India also needs to alter its script in matches.
Sunday also marks Rahul Dravid's last stint at Lord's. He started his international career here in 1996 and it is a journey well lived. Wish we could say the same thing about India's current tour.
The teams (from):
India: M.S. Dhoni (captain), Rahul Dravid, Suresh Raina, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Parthiv Patel, Ravindra Jadeja, Praveen Kumar, Munaf Patel, Vinay Kumar, R.P. Singh, Varun Aaron, Amit Mishra, R. Ashwin, Manoj Tiwary and S. Badrinath.
England: Alastair Cook (captain), Craig Kieswetter, Ian Bell, Jonathan Trott, Ben Stokes, Ravi Bopara, James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Tim Bresnan, Jade Dernbach, Steven Finn, Graeme Swann and Samit Patel.
Umpires: Marais Erasmus and Richard Illingworth; Third umpire: Billy Doctrove; Match referee: Jeff Crowe.
