The Indian Cricket Team toured England for the season July - September , 2011. The tour comprised of four Test matches, five One Day Internationals and a lone T20 battle. Before the start of the Test match series 'Pataudi Trophy' the team had some first class matches. Coming to the first Test (July 21 - 25, 2011) at the Mecca of Cricket, 'Lord's stadium'-London, it was the 2000th Test match in the international cricket. India won the toss and elected to field first. England scored 127/2 at the end of Day 1 play. Meanwhile the match was interrupted with intermittent rains. There was a blow to the Indian team at the end of Day 1 as Zaheer khan suffered from hamstring injury. At lunch on Day 2, England scored 217/3 with Pietersen and Bell playing at their best. After lunch, Dravid kept the wickets since Dhoni tried his hand in bowling. Dhoni has bowled 10 overs in that match (both the innings). Whenever Dhoni went for bowling, Dravid did his best in wicket-keeping once again stood by his team whenever they are in need of him.
At one end , Praveen Kumar was bowling at this best and took a five - wicket haul and at the other end, Pietersen was playing his temperament innings hitting the ball at right areas to reach his double century which had boosted the score of England. England declared the innings at 474/8 after tea break on Day 2, where Kevin Pietersen was unbeaten at 202. Then openers Gautam Gambhir and young Abhinav Mukund started the first innings for India. At the end of Day 2 India were 17/0 at stumps. On Day 3, India had quite a normal start with openers shared a 50 run partnership. Then gone the wicket of Gambhir when India was at 63. The very next wicket of Mukund went quickly and India lost two wickets before the lunch on Day 3.
