India vs. England: T2D2

There's not a lot to say about Day 2, except that it went pretty much as I predicted!

• Bad Lighting - Dish Network's continued insistence that play has been "suspended due to bad lighting" never fails to amuse me. I haven't been to Mohali, but it's supposed to have the best facilities, inclusive of lighting, in India. Just not good enough for EchoStar, I suppose.
• Bails - Anil Kumble's dismissal of Paul Collingwood got me thinking. It was undoubtedly a top-class delivery, illustrating that you don't need to turn the ball square to be a great slow bowler or spinner. Pitched middle and leg, after dipping late, and turned and bounced to clip the top off the off bail. That's the part which was interesting to me. The 3000 frames per second replay clearly showed the ball hitting the very top of the bail, which of course juts several fractions of an inch above the top of the stumps themselves. What that means is, had the bails been removed in windy conditions, that ball would have gone over the top of the stumps, and all we'd have seen or heard is a few "oohs" and "aahs." Perhaps not an issue in Test cricket, but in club cricket in the US and elsewhere, where cheap stumps and bails are used, you often see the bails removed. Makes me wonder how many dismissals I've been unfairly denied!
• Hawkeye - Ian Bell's dismissal, clean bowled by Kumble's googly, yesterday was priceless, and not just for the stunned look on his face when he realized he had done it again (he famously did the same facing Shane Warne last year). The Hawkeye replay showed the ball comfortably missing the stumps. So had Bell got a pad in the way, and been given out by Simon Taufel, the commentators and rest of us at home would have confidently pronounced it a poor decision. Tells you everything you need to know about the extent to which technology should and should not be used in the game.
• Chandigarh Life - In a News of The World style sting, two reporters from The Chandigarh Life posed as cab drivers and taped conversations between England players. Their scoop - Paul Collingwood likes tight-fitting clothes. No fake sheikh scandals here then.
  

More rain forecast for tomorrow, so I guess a solid night's sleep is on the cards. Hats off to Australia in the meantime, for a tremendous one-wicket triumph to keep the ODI series against South Africa alive. Never write off a champion team is all I can say.