Close - India A 75 for 3 lead England 170 all out (Hussain 40, Siddiqui 4-53) by 138 runs
Scorecard

If the game of paper, scissors, stone being played between ICC and the BCCI finishes with two unbending fists, this will have been England's penultimate day of cricket in India. But they won't remember it with any great relish. They will pack in their suitcases memories of an early-morning batting collapse to a demon medium-pacer, a rapid reassessment of yesterday's bowling performances, and a deficit of 138 runs at the end of the second day.

Only a last-wicket stand of 42 between James Foster and Richard Dawson, and three quick wickets for Craig White in the late afternoon, gave Nasser Hussain and Duncan Fletcher anything remotely tasty to chew on.

Their chief annihilator was Iqbal Siddiqui who puffed out his chest in front of the watching selectors and bowled himself into the 14 for the phantom Mohali Test which may or may not start on Monday. His hearty open-chested action was far too much for England, who were just as perplexed by the swinging ball as India A had been yesterday.

Siddiqui took 4 for 53, including 3 for 0 in 13 balls, as England suffered a top-middle-and-late-order collapse in the morning session. Mark Butcher, Michael Vaughan, Mark Ramprakash and Andy Flintoff formed the prey as Siddiqui scavenged as effectively as the kites circling the ground waiting to pounce on any nourishing morsel.

It had looked briefly as if England had recovered from losing both openers in the first 13 balls of the day, as Nasser Hussain and Michael Vaughan put on 36 for the third wicket. But Vaughan was again was the artificial cherry on the cake. He drove Dodda Ganesh down the ground and twice pulled him for four, then made the mistake of trying to pull Siddiqui. The ball didn't get up as high as he expected and he sliced to extra cover for 22 - all but two of which had been hit to the boundary. He waggled his bat in frustration as he walked off, something Nasser Hussain somehow refrained from doing as he watched helpless from the non-striker's end while England lost four wickets for 18.

Ramprakash was lbw to one from Siddiqui that skidded through. Flintoff, who had stolidly played and missed a few times, flapped to first slip without a run to his name.

Reetinder Singh Sodhi, the turbanned trundler, who was too much for Craig White and just before lunch Giles tried to cut his fellow left-armer Sunil Joshi and was caught by Khoda at slip for 2

Hussain had a cathartic post-lunch belch by driving Joshi for six over long-on. But he then fell slog-sweeping, Richard Johnson quickly followed and it was left to the two babies of the party, Foster and Dawson, to sew some fibre into the innings.

They ignored the vagaries of the pitch, ran sensibly and played sensibly, with the occasional improvisation just to prove they had it in them. When Dawson was eventually lbw to Joshi for 19, they had put on the second-highest partnership of the innings, and Dawson, who batted as high as No. 5 for England Under-19, had again shown himself to be a No. 11 in a different class from England's last one, Phil Tufnell.

When India A went in again, 63 runs ahead, Andy Flintoff and Richard Johnson weren't such a potent strike force without the haze of yesterday morning, and it was left to Craig White to make the breakthroughs with three balls that skidded through like runaway potatoes avoiding the shredder .

The unluckiest bowler of the day was Mark Butcher, whose bustling medium-pace was preferred to the spinners in what may have been a clue to the selection at Mohali. Swinging the ball like a yo-yo, Butcher bowled 11 overs for 12. He should have had three wickets - Gambli was dropped by Flintoff, Goud was dropped by Vaughan and off the very last ball of the day, Butcher pleaded for an lbw against Goud. He finished unfulfilled on his knees. It was not exactly where England planned to be at this stage of the tour.

Tanya Aldred, our assistant editor, is covering the whole tour for Wisden.com.

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