Stuart Carlisle, living upto the new found responsibility of being captain, and he certainly isn’t alone in that respect in this Zimbabwean team, showed that he was not overawed by the reputation of India being tigers at home. Well, the Royal Bengal, is highly endangered and struggling to survive these days. Hitting tweaker Harbhajan Singh over long on for a six was only the icing on the cake – a wholesome, sumptuous one it was rather than the rich kind associated with batting flat wickets.

Carlisle, keen enough to stick around out in the middle, negotiated the swinging old ball with care. Zaheer Khan almost looked more deadly than with the old ball than new, but then again few Indian ‘quicks’ have dazzled with the new ball. Zaheer Khan in good rhythm, is a welcome sight to any Indian captain, and that was exactly what Ganguly had at his disposal.

After Kumble had prised out Campbell, there was little the spinners managed. Campbell, on 57 (98 balls, 9 fours) must have had visions of another century at Nagpur. After scoring a boundary and a brace, with the adrenaline running high Campbell slapped a cover drive to Laxman at short cover. The sharp catch was held and Zimbabwe had lost their second wicket.

Despite the loss of Andy Flower, thanks to a Zaheer Khan yorker in the 46th over, Carlisle battled on.

No such determine from Gavin Rennie (9) though. The left hander reacted late to a Javagal Srinath bouncer and gloved the ball through to substitute fielder Virender Sehwag.

Grant Flower (8 not out, 2 fours) and Carlisle (67 not out, 181 balls, 9 fours, 1 six) will return after tea to push forward. All things considered, India will be happy with their returns from the day so far.

Zaheer Khan, fresh from his consecutive 10-wicket hauls in domestic cricket, generated good pace on a wicket that’s better suited to a game of clay court tennis than three seamers charging in and trying to snuff out defensive batsmen. Flat, dry and with cracks that threaten to open up and beckon to the tweakers from as early as the morning of the third day – this is a standard Nagpur wicket.

To his credit, the Baroda left-arm seamer made the best use of what little movement there was early on. Bowling from over the wicket to the right-handers, Zaheer Khan managed to get a good angle going away from the batsmen. Too good an angle for Trevor Gripper to make more than 5 runs. The opener tried at the last moment to take his bat out harm’s way of an away swinger and edged the ball thorough for Deep Dasgupta to take a good catch diving low to his right.

Alistair Campbell whose career has more comings and goings to the team than Test centuries, has fond memories of the Orange City. In his last outing here Campbell reached three figures. Putting the scare of Amit Mishra’s ‘Warnesque’ leg-break in the tour game out of his mind, Campbell (28 not out) settled into a good rhythm, stroking the ball away for runs.

Nasser Hussain, in England’s recent tour of India warned of ‘turgid cricket.’ Carlisle has said to the press that he wanted to ‘attack like the English.’ He means it. Despite a lot of people writing of Carlisle’s Zimbabwe, the batsman took his job very seriously indeed. Ok, so there were no flashing drives, no powerful horizontal bat shots. Spectators might be less than thrilled with this, but it did the visitors a world of good. Carlisle was unbeaten on 22 from a patient 94 balls.

For Zimbabwe, Tatenda Taibu will keep wickets, leaving Andy Flower to concentrate on his batting. Opener Dion Ebrahim missed out on this clash.

India holds a better home record of having won two Tests and drawn one against Zimbabwe. The record at this ground however, is not inspiring, just the two Test matches out of six producing a result. In the very first Test match to be played here, in 1969 New Zealand beat India by 169 runs. Venkatraghavan picked up nine wickets in that Test match. India were undone by a brilliant spell of left-arm spin bowling (23-11-34-5) by Hedley John Howarth.

The other result came in the year 1986, India beating Sri Lanka by an innings and 106 runs. Dilip Vengsarkar and Mohinder Amarnath hit hundreds and the left-arm spin of Maninder Singh took care of the rest of the match, he picked up a ten-wicket-haul for the Test.

India and Zimbabwe played out a draw in November 2000 in a remarkable Test match. India had piled on a huge 609/6 decl, thanks to a brilliant double hundred (201) and tons from Dravid (162) and SS Das (110). Grant Flower hit a superb century to take Zimbabwe to 382 all out. Following on, Zimbabwe were taken to the safety of a draw by a remarkable knock of 232* by Andy Flower. Alistair Campbell too hit a century giving Flower good support.

Talking about Andy Flower's batting, he has such a good record in Test cricket, averaging 53.55 in making 4552 runs. He saves his best for India though, cracking three big hundreds in making 1035 runs at an amazing average of 129.37

The maximum temperature would be around the 33 celsius mark. It is clear blue skies here in Nagpur. It is the humidity, which is going to make it a bit difficult for the players - 87% This is an important series for many players. Most importantly for Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman, they have to start scoring heavily. Both the players are under some pressure.