Ganguly and Sehwag gave the England bowlers no time to settle. They savaged them from the outset with a series of ferocious strokes. Ganguly raced to a fifty from a mere 35 balls with nine fours and a six over the covers off Andrew Flintoff. Sehwag could not keep up with his captain, and nor did he need to, such was the power of Ganguly's strokeplay.

The hundred came up from 80 balls (England's had been from 101) and Ganguly's contribution to the Indian cause extended to hammering a fierce cut through the covers via Nasser Hussain's wrist. The England captain withdrew for treatment. Ronnie Irani came into the attack, but departed after one over costing 16 runs. Hussain returned, so did Tudor and he started the decline in India's fortunes.

Ganguly fashioned an ugly smear to a ball of full length and was bowled. It had been a heroic innings, but its end saw a clatter of wickets just as there had been a clatter of runs. Next over, Sehwag tried to run Ashley Giles to third man and was bowled. Then Dinesh Mongia was given out caught by Alec Stewart down the leg side off Irani.

Irani induced Rahul Dravid to chip to Nick Knight at short mid-wicket, and when Tendulkar made room to be bowled by Giles, there was an overpowering impression that India's brave and exciting challenge might well have ended.

Hussain and Trescothick put on 185 for the second wicket from just 177 balls before the opener played a somewhat tired and lazy sweep against Anil Kumble to be bowled. The sweep and slog-sweep had served him well up to that point as he reached his century from 89 balls with six fours and two sixes. It was a superb innings that completely destroyed any pre-conceived bowling plans that India might have had.

Sourav Ganguly employed the services of no fewer than seven bowlers, but they all tended to to come alike to the England batsmen. Even the revered spin partnership of Kumble and Harbhajan Singh went for 107 runs in their 20 overs for the meagre return of Trescothick's wicket.

Andrew Flintoff joined Hussain and proceeded to impose himself on the bowling with gusto. He drove one mighty straight six off Harbhajan and if he only found the boundary on two other occasions, he still managed to reach 40 from 32 balls before he missed a full toss from Zhaeer Khan who was finding this to be his prime wicket-taking ball.

Hussain, by then, had gone to his first one-day international century at the 72nd time of asking. It came from 118 balls with seven fours, and as he reached the milestone he turned to the media centre to indicate the number three on the back of his shirt. He had received some criticism from that quarter about his suitability to bat at number three in the order. The magnitude of his innings if not the manner of it should silence that now.

Hussain had time from the remaining ten balls of his innings to add three more boundaries to his tally – one of them a pre-meditated sweep off Ashish Nehra that raced fine toward the pavilion. It was when he tried to do the same again that he was bowled by a very full ball that just bounced before crashing into the stumps.

Michael Vaughan came and went – to the ball after Hussain was out picking up Khan towards deep square-leg where Dinesh Mongia held a comfortable catch. So it was left to Paul Collingwood and Ronnie Irani to slog, nudge and scramble their way to a total of 325 England's fourth highest in one-day internationals

Trescothick was his usual dominant self, while Knight was still struggling for the touch that has made him a feared opponent. His timing and composure was not quite there as he took 29 balls to reach 14 at which point he played horribly round a full toss from Zaheer Khan to be bowled.

Hussain came in at the fall of the wicket and needed to do no more for a while than watch Trescothick flay the bowling. He brought up the fifty by flicking Khan for six over mid-wicket and reached his own fifty from 40 balls with four boundaries added to that six.

Sourav Ganguly was forced to bring the spinners on earlier than he might have wanted, but they met with no more success than the opening bowlers. Hussain was finding trouble in establishing any sort of fluency in his batting, but the arrival of Ganguly himself in the attack signalled the start of an assault from Hussain that was not necessarily pretty to watch but was thoroughly effective in raising the scoring rate at just the time it was needed.

With a combination of elegant strokes, agricultural swings and not a little good fortune, the batsmen plundered 28 runs from Ganguly's three overs, during which he also got an official warning for running down the pitch. It allowed Hussain to settle into a more conventional vein, while Trescothick continued imperiously by hoisting Harbhajan over mid-wicket for another six with a slog-sweep, in the modern argot. Such an effortless and controlled shot deserves a better description.

By the half way point in the innings England were in a commanding position. Trescothick was on 80, Hussain on 43 and the foundations had been laid for a total that might test even this talented Indian batting order.

The team news for India is that Anil Kumble has passed a fitness test on his injured calf and plays, coming into the side in place of Tinu Yohannan who played against Sri Lanka in Bristol on Thursday. That means Harbhajan Singh keeps his place after four wickets in the last match.

England also make one change from the team that beat India at The Oval on Tuesday. Ashley Giles comes back into the side in place of Matthew Hoggard.

England team: ME Trescothick, NV Knight, *N Hussain, RC Irani, A Flintoff, MP Vaughan, PD Collingwood, +AJ Stewart, AJ Tudor, D Gough, AF Giles.

India team: *SC Ganguly, V Sehwag, D Mongia, SR Tendulkar, +R Dravid, Yuvraj Singh, M Kaif, Z Khan, A Kumble, Harbhajan Singh, A Nehra.