Indians don't disappoint on dead track

The pitch for the first 5 sessions of Kanpur test has been an absolute beauty to bat on. The exploits of top six Indian batsmen, especially the way they scored their runs, shows how easy it was to stay and get runs at a healthy average through classical strokes alone. The Top six batsmen scored 612 runs, with as many as 171 coming from Cover region alone.

The right-handed batsmen in the Indian team (Sehwag, Dravid, tendulkar and Laxman) completely relished the opportunity to score some easy runs, and played some authentic cover drives. 117 of the 378 runs of right-handers came from cover region alone. The top right-handed batsmen played more in front of the wicket. The area between Cover and Midwicket accounted for 251 (66%) of their runs, while the areas between square leg and Point accounted for just 34% .

Ditto for the Left-handers. 54 runs off the blades of Yuvraj and Gambhir came from Cover area, while 40 were scored off mid off region. The track afforded the opportunity to assault the Lankans with minimum risk. And the top six batsmen did accomplish that with great merit to put India in a position of extreme strength. A position from where the hosts simply can't lose.