England were on tour to India during the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai and promptly flew back mid-way through the series. They returned after a couple of weeks to play the Test matches in Chennai and Mohali. But a similar situation here was avoided for the good of the game.
Team India is in BIrmingham for the third Test against England beginning on August 10
AFP
A third straight Test win over an injury-hit India will give England an unbeatable 3-0 lead in the four-match series and see them rise to the top of the ICC's Test Championship table.
India, beset by injuries, have rarely had their best team on the field and came straight into the series on the back of a tour of the Caribbean with just one practice match in English conditions.
But what cannot be denied is that Strauss's men have played some excellent cricket during a 196-run first Test win at Lord's that was followed by an even more emphatic 319-run success at Trent Bridge.
Their bowlers have prevented the much-vaunted Indian batting line-up, albeit one where dynamic opener Virender Sehwag has only just joined the squad following shoulder surgery, from once getting to 300 in four innings.
Meanwhile, England's batting depth has proved too much for an India attack where left-arm quick Zaheer Khan's series came to an end midway through his 14th over at Lord's.
"It's a mental thing as well because for some of us it's been a seven-match Test series with hardly any gap," admitted India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who looked close to both physical and mental exhaustion at Trent Bridge.
Medium-pacer Praveen Kumar has done his best to shoulder a heavy workload but with off-spinner Harbhajan Singh breaking down with a series-ending stomach injury at Trent Bridge, recalled England seamer Tim Bresnan made 90 batting at No. 8 before taking a Test-best five for 44 with the ball.
Bresnan was only playing at Trent Bridge because of the hamstring and back problems to fast bowler Chris Tremlettw, who has been ruled out of the third Test as well. Effectively, it will give Bresnan a place in the XI at Edgbaston.
The Yorkshireman, a winner in all his eight Tests to date, showed his ruthlessness with the ball by pounding Yuvraj Singh on the gloves with a succession of short deliveries on the fourth and last day at Trent Bridge before Bresnan had him caught by a specifically set close-in fielder.
Yuvraj was subsequently ruled out of the rest of the series with a broken finger.
India have called up spinner Pragyan Ojha and batsman Virat Kohli as cover for Harbhajan and Yuvraj, respectively, while RP Singh, a like-for-like replacement, recently joined the squad in Zaheer's absence.
Few England fans at Edgbaston would begrudge seeing India great Sachin Tendulkar become the first batsman to score 100 international hundreds.
Tendulkar's already stellar reputation, and indeed that of the India team as a whole, may well have gone up a few notches after it emerged he played a key role in helping persuade his side to withdraw their second Test run-out appeal against Ian Bell when the batsman mistakenly assumed the ball was dead.
Bell returns to his Warwickshire home ground in the form of his life, having made a sublime 159 after being promoted to No. 3 following the shoulder injury that has ruled county colleague Jonathan Trott out of third Test.
Trott's injury has paved the way for a Test return for Ravi Bopara, the man whose lack of form against Australia two years ago cleared a path for his South Africa-born rival to score a hundred on debut in the 2009 Ashes finale.
England, under coach Andy Flower, have stuck to a policy of playing six specialist batsmen.
That means Bopara and Eoin Morgan could both yet play at Edgbaston despite the all-round form of Bresnan and fellow seamer Stuart Broad, who took a hat-trick at Trent Bridge as well as scored valuable runs.
