Tendulkar falls short, India whitewashed

Sachin Tendulkar fell nine runs short of his 100th international hundred yesterday as England completed a 4-0 series win over India, beating the tourists by an innings and eight runs in the final Test at The Oval.

India resumed on 129-3 and made it to lunch without further loss, but collapsed to 283 all out before tea, with Tendulkar falling in a flurry of seven wickets for just 21 runs.

Stranded on 99 hundreds since he hit 111 against South Africa at the World Cup in March, the Little Master stood distraught at the wicket after being given lbw to Tim Bresnan - trudging off and taking with him India's hopes of saving the match.

Graeme Swann finished with six wickets as England comprehensively beat the side they have deposed at the top of the rankings with a seventh-inning victory in 13 Tests.

Changed with a wicket

"We were struggling for ideas there for a little while, but we knew with one wicket, it could change," England captain Andrew Strauss said. "It's been up there with the best series we've played as a group.

"We've had a lot of victories over the last couple of years and we expect to win matches now."

After an almost utterly one-sided series, England's players were presented with the mace carried by the side No. 1 in the Test rankings.

But after Rahul Dravid had carried his bat through India's first-innings 300, it had looked for a time as though Tendulkar and the unheralded Amit Mishra could salvage a draw.

Mishra, promoted up the order as Gautim Gambhir dropped down following his second-day concussion, swept and cut to match his career-best first-class score and better his previous Test high by 34.

But the pair's 134-run fourth-wicket stand - India's best partnership of a dismal series - ended when Swann ended 17 overs of frustration by bowling him with a delivery that he simply missed.

"He's got the ability to get quite frustrated at times but he had to bowl a lot of overs over two days," Strauss said of the spinner, who had been overshadowed by the pace bowlers for much of the series. "There's a lot expectation of him on a wicket that turns a lot, but he delivered again."

The home crowd celebrated that breakthrough but such is Tendulkar's standing as one of Test cricket's all-time greats, that a hush fell over the south London ground when Bresnan dismissed him.

The 38-year-old Tendulkar hit his first of his 52 Test centuries in England aged 17 in 1990, saving the second Test at Old Trafford with 119 not out, but like most of his teammates had struggled as England won the first three Tests.

But what could be his last Test innings in England was far from a classic knock. Tendulkar was dropped twice off Swann, by Alastair Cook on 70 at short leg and Matthew Prior on 85 behind the stumps.

He also survived two lbw shouts against the spinner before Bresnan finally ended his highest innings of the series.

Swann on a roll

And Swann was suddenly on a roll, getting rid of Suresh Raina, Gambhir and last-man Sreesanth for figures of 6-106.

Stuart Broad, who was named Man of the Series for his haul of 25 wickets and 182 runs, claimed captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and RP Singh for 2-44 off 20 overs.

While England's bowlers took all 20 Indian wickets for the fourth time in four Tests, India managed to take only 47 in total.

But Dhoni said the batsmen - and a hectic international schedule - were to blame for the heavy losses.

Other than Dravid, who became the first player ever to score three centuries for a team that lost every Test in a series, no India batsman scored a hundred. England's Kevin Pietersen and Ian Bell between them scored 264 more than Tendulkar, Dhoni, VVS Laxman, Virender Sehwag and Gambhir combined.

"The problem was we didn't get a score over 300," Dhoni said. "We tried our best, but we did not get much time together before the series because the players were coming from the West Indies."