Close England 264 for 9 (Stewart 71*, Vaughan 61, Harbhajan 3-39) trail India 628 for 8 dec (Tendulkar 193, Dravid 148, Ganguly 128) by 364 runs
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England are on the rack, and no mistake. Inspired by Anil Kumble and abetted by some crass shot selection, India rampaged through a batting line-up that had devoured allcomers all summer. Kumble, whose two wickets could easily have been four or five, extracted the type of spiteful bounce that makes him so lethal on the subcontinent. He was ably backed up by Harbhajan Singh, who shredded England's last hopes with two wickets in consecutive deliveries, and the seamers Zaheer Khan and Ajit Agarkar, who fired as a unit for the first time this summer. England closed on 264 for 9, still 165 runs from making India bat again, with six sessions of cricket in prospect.

England had already been run ragged in the field for two whole days, and were subjected to a final bout of humiliation in the morning session, in which just 34 runs were scored but, more importantly, four soul-sapping catches were dropped. By the time Sourav Ganguly declared with an hour to go before lunch, England's heads were hanging to their bootlaces.

To their credit, Michael Vaughan and Robert Key, who had dropped three simple catches in the course of India's innings, gritted their teeth and set about India's new ball. But guts alone were not sufficient, particularly when Kumble entered the attack to put the heebie-jeebies up the England batsmen, and 15 minutes into the second session, the rot set in. Zaheer, who had bowled an innocuous opening spell, switched ends and angled one across Key (30), who edged a comfortable catch to VVS Laxman at second slip. Vaughan then had a moment of divine intervention when umpire Orchard turned down a stone-dead appeal for lbw off Kumble, but Mark Butcher was soon pinned on the back foot with a mirror-image of that very delivery (113 for 2).

Vaughan, once again, was in imperious touch, lacing the off-side boundary with cover-drives of the dreamiest calibre. While he was at the crease, all was well with the innings, but his dismissal, to a loose drive off Agarkar moments after Laxman had dropped the simplest of chances, summed up the innings. England went to an early tea when a spot of drizzle swept across the ground, but it was not enough to stall the procession.

Nasser Hussain enjoys a scrap, but on 25, he was trapped lbw by Zaheer with a ball that nipped back and would probably have gone over the top (140 for 4), and England's last hopes of avoiding the follow-on evaporated within two balls by Harbhajan Singh. First, he lured John Crawley into leg-glancing a flighted off-break straight to a tumbling VVS Laxman at leg slip – Crawley had made 13 in an hour – and then Andrew Flintoff foolishly padded-up to the next delivery and was adjudged leg-before to a ball that was missing leg.

Alec Stewart made the most of a first-ball reprieve, and counterattacked his way to a bold 71 not out, aided first by Alex Tudor, then Ashley Giles, who hung around gamely in hopeless circumstances. England were clinging onto their first innings by the close, but still faced a deficit of 364, with two whole days to survive and the weather set fair.

Midway through the second Test at Trent Bridge, England had established such a stranglehold over this Indian side that few people truly believed there was anything left to fight for this summer. But, if the team had begun to daydream about the upcoming Ashes battle, then Sachin Tendulkar and Co. have rudely clicked their fingers and awoken them to the task at hand. India showed what can be done in a fourth-innings rearguard by surviving at Trent Bridge – but it will take some grit of the Rahul Dravid variety, and a bucketload of bad weather, to pull this one out of the fire.

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