Rahul Dravid almost didn't get that 100th run which helped him complete his fourth Test century on the trot. He cramped while completing the 99th, and it was only wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel's exhorting which persuaded him to go for the second. "I didn't think I would be able to complete the second run," he said after the day's play was over. "I wasn't sure if the ball was going to the boundary. But Parthiv saw the ball slowing down and called me to run. It was a good call from a youngster like him."

Dravid said that he had started feeling dehydrated before the tea break, at which point he was on 98 not out. "But it just got worse afterwards," he said. "I was terribly dehydrated and was cramping all over. I just couldn't continue. I thought I would collapse.

"At no stage after that did I feel like resuming my innings, but I think I should be able to field tomorrow."

Dravid needs one more century to equal the record held by the great West Indian Everton Weekes, who made five in a row between March 1948 and January 1949. Four of them came against India, and if Dravid does get that fifth hundred, it would be sweet, if belated, revenge.

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