"Ye Re Ye Re Pavsaa"

Translated from Marathi that would mean "Come Come oh Rain!" That easily was the most heard prayer by God yesterday and after having ignored many such pleas starting from the WC 2003 finals - He thought that it was about time to relent and finally signalled the Rain Department to shower on Lords. Ofcourse the Department was in complete readiness for that command by raining all around the ground (except on it till that command came in) for the best part of the day. Perhaps they too were wanting to see if the Indians were upto a fight - to see if they could survive two sessions. They did - thanks in no small measure to Dhoni who yet again showed he has the brains - and then the Gods obliged.

One cant really blame the Gods for delaying the rains till the last minute possible - after all if we had a spine we would have lasted for 15 minutes in the Kingston test against West Indies - taken the rains that were so strong that they lasted for 2 weeks and washed out 2 ODIs. But no - we did not do the hanging around and instead had downpour of tears instead of the rains.

But perhaps yesterday was the luck we deserved - not for any great achievement in the field - but just for Dhoni's insistence on keeping the strike as far as possible though the Gods might have been tempted to deny India the luck given the way Zak and RP tried to gift it all away.

But it stayed. India will take the luck - grin - and move on to Trent Bridge where hopefully the Batsmen will realise that they are infact supposed to be one of the best lineups in the world and perform accordingly.

What also is heartening is the statistic that every time in an England Series that India has failed to lose the first test - they have gone on to win the series. So perhaps the rains in the first test mean that a series victory is heading our way.