Wright still hopeful for a draw

London, July 28: Despite India being placed in a seemingly hopeless position in the first cricket Test against England, coach John Wright today expressed confidence that his team would at least be able to salvage a draw.

"It (the draw) is perfectly achievable with the kind of players we have," Wright said after England ended the third day's play at 184 for three in their second innings to enjoy a mammoth lead of 450.

"We have to bat for five sessions. If Virender Sehwag bats for five sessions, anything is possible," Wright joked.

But he was not at all happy with India's batting performance in the first innings.

"We are very reliant on the first six (batsmen) to get the runs. We need more runs from the tail but that may take a little bit of time.

"We should really have gone to stumps last night at one down. Losing wickets then didn't help matters. We certainly didn't establish any partnership," he said.

Wright refused to classify the English tactics of bowling short-pitched deliveries from round the wicket to Sachin Tendulkar as negative or intimidatory and said such a strategy might become a regular feature in this series.

"Looking at it today, they (the Indians) may have to learn to live with it throughout the series. It is almost a mental attrition," he said.

England pacemen started bowling round the wicket right from the start to the day's play today and repeatedly sent down short-pitched balls aimed at Tendulkar's rib-cage cutting the master batsman's options to score runs.

"It is not the way we like to play. We like to play strokes and their plan almost seems to frustrate us," Wright said.

Stifled for too long, Tendulkar finally lost his patience and attempted to drive a wide delivery from Craig White which resulted in his dismissal.

"It is the end result which decides how to judge these tactics. If it is not successful, they can be viewed as such (negative). But now that they have got the job done, they are successful, they must be seen in another light," Wrigh said.

"The means for them achieved the end today and we have to learn to cope with it," he said.

While England coach Duncan Fletcher said his team was only playing to a plan against Tendulkar, Wright was of the view that the ground umpires can stop such tactics.

"From what I understand, it is in umpires' hands. It is in their hands to see that the thing is within the spirit of the game.

"But again the object of the bowler is to get wicket. The object for batsmen is to stay there and score runs. It must be said England achieved their target today."

Wright said the batsmen needed to have loads of patience while dealing with such tactics. "Patience as a virtue is very important. But it can make for pretty slow cricket."

The Indian coach was also concerned with the fact that   V V S Laxman is often running out of partners in Test innings.

"Laxman was stranded and it happened even in the West Indies. The tail must produce runs but it might take a little bit of time," he said.

Despite India falling well short of the follow-on mark of 288, England did not impose a follow-on and Fletcher said a lot of thought had gone into the decision.

"We spoke to the bowlers at the end of the Indian innings and they were pretty tired," Fletcher said. "You could see by the way they bowled in India's innings that they bowled with a lot of focus and energy.

"What people have to realise is that these boys haven't bowled in such heat all this summer. It is tiring."

Fletcher was of the opinion that his bowlers hadn't bowled quite well yesterday but today it was a different story.

"We had a good chat this morning before we warmed up about what was required. Every ball they bowled, you know they were very focused, they were very intent."

"We have worked out a plan for each different bowler how he wanted to bowl at the batsmen. We have an idea how we want to bowl at them.

It was his bowlers' attempt, said Fletcher "to push the Indians on the backfoot and use some reverse swing."