Swing When You're Winning

Hopefully, this isn't a one-off.
For the most part of Friday, India's bowling unit, much hacked at times (occasionally by this writer too) for its hapless demeanour, tardy execution and even ragged discipline, showed how good they were. Bloody good. The Indian bowling unit's display at Trent Bridge was not just a stupendously refreshing sight, but one that is reassuring or comforting, given that these events took place without Zaheer Khan, widely considered the leader/mentor of this fledgling bowling attack.
Indeed, one could argue the conditions were massively skewed in favour of the bowlers, and this performance was largely par for the course, but what makes this special is that the Indian attack seemed to have measured their mistakes from London, and quickly corrected them, the lengths, the lines, the tactics, everything.
The most disappointing feature about Friday's display was that apparent brainfreeze that has become a regular habit with this Indian team. Upto tea, they embodied perfection, intent and every other positive attribute, only to be undone by an hour of tactical bizarreness and subsequent blunders. The fields were pushed back for no.9 and no. 10 batsmen, the pace bowlers lost their respective rhythm, not just with the counter-attack the two of them were involved in, to good effect, but things just stopped happening. I thought, Dhoni went on the defensive then, moving away from the fields he so impressively set for some of the English top-order, resulting in an hour of madness. The bowling obviously backed up the tactical deficit with less than ordinary performance, but this is one area where India need to shore up, and rather quickly - with the same amount of intensity as they did with the new ball.
Having said that, for the five hours of joy they gave me, with the most advanced display of swing bowling, much like what we witnessed last year when Pakistan were in England, I am willing to forgive that phase of dementia as if it never happened. I thought, after a long long time I witnessed something special from a bowling attack that was under the microscope for its (in)ability to take twenty wickets. Yes, they still are a work in progress and only threaten to get better with experience. For now, they've done half the job. Over to Laxman and Dravid.