Patel talks up England's chances

Nov 16 2012

England face a long haul to salvage a stalemate in the first Test, but remain confident they have the ability to do so.

In reply to India's 521 for eight declared, the tourists lost three wickets in as many overs to the home spinners to close day two on a vulnerable 41 for three. They may therefore need to bat for the vast majority of three days - eking all they can out of 17 wickets, unless they can take the follow-on out of the equation - to prevent India going 1-0 up.

Samit Patel will be one of those called upon to prove England's mettle - and after also bowling 31 overs on a pitch offering slow turn and low bounce, he sees no reason why the tourists cannot return in kind plenty of the runs scored by Cheteshwar Pujara (206no) and Virender Sehwag (117) at the Sardar Patel Stadium.

"We've got two world-class batsmen at the crease, Belly [Ian Bell] still to come, myself and Matty P [Matt Prior] - a lot of batting," said Patel. "There's no question about how long we can bat. We've got the same potential of batting as India have - and we've got to keep believing that."

He expects occupation to become easier against Ravichandran Ashwin and Pragyan Ojha once the ball in their hands takes some wear and tear. "The ball's harder, and I think it spins more when the ball's harder," he said. "The telling time will be when the ball gets soft; then we can get in.

"You have to earn the right to get in first, and I think Cookie [Alastair Cook] and Kev [Kevin Pietersen] in the morning have got to set their stall out and bat well."

Unsurprisingly, Pujara does not appear to rate England's chances of survival as highly as Patel.

"There's nothing wrong with the wicket," he said. "The ball is turning. We've got three England wickets ... I think we've utilised the conditions better than them.

"It's going to be a challenging task for them, because the way they were batting it looked like they were a fragile line-up for sure.

"The kind of momentum we've got in these 18 overs, I think we can get them all out by tomorrow (evening) - and obviously, we'd like to finish the match before five days if possible."