Close England (238 and 34 for 0) trail India 469 all out (Dasgupta 100, Tendulkar 88, Dravid 86, Dawson 4-134) by 197 runs
scorecard

England came through a testing trial by spin on the third evening, but face an even bigger examination tomorrow. With the pitch starting to wear and Harbhajan Singh warming up nicely, India remained favourites to take a 1-0 lead to Ahmedabad on Tuesday.

Faced with a deficit of 231 after India had racked up 469, England's openers got their heads down against the spinners. After nine overs of seam, during which England's boundary count was limited to a rasping Mark Butcher cut off Tinu Yohannan's second ball of the innings, Sourav Ganguly played his trump cards.

Harbhajan was more threatening than Anil Kumble, and turned the ball repeatedly across both left-handers. And he almost bowled Marcus Trescothick when a defensive push bounced backwards and looked in danger of dropping onto the stumps. Trescothick almost demolished his own wicket as he dangled his leg behind him, but he missed both stumps and ball, which also missed each other.

After 13 overs, Trescothick had made just 4, but he added 10 runs in the 14th, courtesy of two trademark slog-sweeps for four off Kumble, interspersed with a push off his hips for two. It was tense stuff, but England hung on.

Earlier, India's innings contained contributions all the way down the order - plus a couple from England's butter-fingered fielders. India started the day sitting pretty at 262 for 3, and were soon moving along attractively as Sachin Tendulkar pulled Jimmy Ormond for four, and timed Matthew Hoggard through mid-on with a classical tilt of the left elbow.

But England struck in the seventh over when Ormond brought one back - possibly too far - into Rahul Dravid's pads and won a leg-before shout from umpire Venkat. Dravid was out for 88 and India were 290 for 4. Tendulkar's response was to punish a rare loose Hoggard over for 12 (an on-drive, a flick through midwicket, and a pull), as the crowd, sensing another great innings, danced with delight.

Sourav Ganguly opened up with two off-side boundaries off the erratic Ormond, and, while Tendulkar took a back seat, embarked on a feisty duel with his old Lancashire team-mate Andy Flintoff. Working on the theory that Ganguly enjoys the short ball as much as a kick in the groin, Flintoff mixed bouncers with bluster and eventually had to be told to pipe down by umpire Bucknor as the players walked off for lunch. It took some of the gloss off what had been a searching spell.

India had scored 91 runs in 24 overs before the interval, but this was positively helter-skelter compared with the afternoon session. Things began promisingly enough when Tendulkar took seven runs off the first two deliveries, bowled by Dawson, but after that runs were as scarce as a Jagmohan Dalmiya apology.

England bowled tightly but their fielding was atrocious. Ganguly twinkled down the track to cart Dawson over mid-on for four, but when he tried to repeat the shot in the same over and was beaten in the flight, James Foster fluffed a simple stumping.

It turned out not to be too costly. Chugging in with bald-headed bravado Hoggard removed India's two big names in successive overs. First Tendulkar, who had entered one of the troughs that characterised his Jekyll-and-Hyde innings, got a faint edge on one that seamed away and was caught behind for 88 (370 for 5). Then, with the spectators still gaping open-mouthed at the improbability of it all, Ganguly cut Hoggard uppishly to point, where Graham Thorpe held on (378 for 6). Ganguly had made 47 and the crowd twitched with irritation.

That catch didn't exactly qualify Thorpe for hero status, but what happened next definitely had the ring of villain about it. Sanjay Bangar tried to turn Dawson to leg and got a leading edge that flew at head height straight to Thorpe at cover. It looked a hard one to drop, but somehow that's precisely what Thorpe contrived to do. Bangar went on to make 36, which meant that England's five fluffed chances would eventually cost them 112 runs - almost half of India's first-innings lead.

VVS Laxman peppered the on side with some meaty bottom-handed drives before absentmindedly cutting Dawson to Nasser Hussain at backward point for 28 (430 for 7). And with Indian sages still muttering about another promising innings ending in anticlimax, Dawson pinned Harbhajan lbw for 1 with a cunning yorker (436 for 8).

With Flintoff in the middle of a heroic spell of pace and reverse-swing, Dawson picked up his fourth wicket when Bangar skyed an attempted slog. Understandably, Dawson decided he was going to take this catch himself and held on unfussily (449 for 9).

Iqbal Siddiqui's long handle whacked Dawson over long-on for six, but his merry-making came to an end when Hoggard bowled him off the inside edge for 24. Eight of India's wickets had fallen to Yorkshire bowlers, which was hard luck on the only Lancastrian. Flintoff's figures of 34-11-80-0 were a superb effort in testing conditions. At some stage tomorrow he will need to show England that he has matured with the bat too.

Lawrence Booth is assistant editor of Wisden.com.

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