As the first Test between England and India meandered to a draw after five days of swinging fortunes, both captains were convinced the Trent Bridge wicket was not the kind they would necessarily like to play the coming Tests. The pitch was dormant without any bounce or turn, and produced a high-scoring game with very little for the bowlers to write home about. Both MS Dhoni and Alastair Cook hoped for more “English” conditions for the remaining four Tests of the series. “When you go to a country to play cricket, you want to be faced with the specialty of that country,” Dhoni said. “England is known for the swinging ball and overcast conditions and I hope there is more life in the wickets we play on next.” Cook echoed Dhoni’s views and claimed that the Indian batsmen were more at home on this pitch than the hosts. “That Nagpur pitch we played on in 2012, this was a very similar wicket to that,” he said. “Hopefully we will get back to some English conditions where the bounce will be even. On the first day of the Test it took us about 45 minutes to realize that this is not a normal Trent Bridge wicket where the ball flies to third slip. We knew we have to adapt, have catches in front of the square and wait for the ball to reverse.” Both skippers were impressed with the way their bowlers toiled in unhelpful conditions. “On a wicket like this, our bowlers did really well,” Dhoni said. “We bowled close to 160 overs and their effort was great throughout and they kept coming in hard despite bowling so many overs. It was a fantastic effort by the pacers.” While overall the Test belonged to the batsmen, there was a scare for the Indians on the morning of the fifth day when the ball was reversing in wet conditions. India lost three quick wickets after which Stuart Binny, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Ravindra Jadeja steadied the ship. Binny, in particular, was the savior with his knock of 78. Dhoni was all praise for the debutant. “It was a very important partnership in the context of the game. At that point we were not very safe because there was a lot of time left and we would have struggled to defend the number of runs we had at that time. It was a much needed partnership. Not many of our batsmen have the experience of batting under the pressure of saving a Test match. Games like this give them that exposure. It was really nice that when the pressure was put on us there were individuals who stood up to the occasion,” the skipper said. While Binny played an important role with the bat, his bowling services were not utilized to the fullest, as he bowled only 10 overs in the match. Dhoni said the wicket didn’t suit his style of bowling and hoped he will play a bigger role with the ball in the coming matches. “We were hampered a bit despite playing five bowlers because the wicket didn’t suit Stuart Binny’s style of bowling,” Dhoni said. “But since Jadeja could exploit the rough patches, I wasn’t forced to give Stuart more overs. And although Stuart bowled only 10 overs, he helped me keep the frontline pacers fresh and it was a good effort from his side. We hope the wickets in the coming matches are slightly more helpful to the pacers so that he can swing the ball and pick some wickets while allowing the main pacers some rest.”