India chasing big target to save Test

BIRMINGHAM, England (AP): India are facing a heavy defeat in the third Test against England at Edgbaston, after they reached 35-1 at stumps yesterday, 451 runs behind with nine second-inning wickets remaining.

James Anderson had Virender Sehwag caught for a king pair with the second ball of India's innings. Rahul Dravid reached 18 not out and Gautam Gambhir was unbeaten on 14 at stumps.

Earlier, England declared on 710-7 - their third highest Test score - after Alastair Cook reached 294 for his best Test knock.

"It's mad isn't it, how you can still be disappointed when you've scored 290-odd," Cook said. "I suppose only cricket can do that to you, there's a tinge of disappointment, but in reality I'm thrilled."

Cook fell just short of a triple century when, after 545 balls, he drove straight to Suresh Raina at square leg off the bowling of Ishant Sharma.

It was a typically steady innings from Cook, who at one point faced 137 balls without scoring a boundary.

"We wanted to try to have 10 overs at India tonight, with a 500-odd lead," Cook said. "There were no time constraints on us so we just wanted to get as many runs as we could and I think 700 is a pretty good effort."

Eoin Morgan was out for 104 while Tim Bresnan hit an unbeaten 53. Amit Mishra took 3-150 for India, but the demoralised tourists again contributed to their downfall by bowling 63 extras.

defiance

But Mishra struck a note of defiance.

"I'm very confident and positive that our batting line-up will definitely get a draw here," he said. "The wicket is conducive to batting, so I'm very confident."

England began the day on 456-2 and Morgan reached his half-century with a single from Praveen Kumar before rain caused a brief delay.

The hosts were on 503-3 when an early lunch was called due to further rain, and scoring was slow when play resumed before the afternoon session briefly degenerated into a farce after an hour.

An electrical failure had cut the power in the £32-million (US$52million) new stand at lunch, but when this was restored the floodlights failed.

When the natural light deteriorated, the umpires took the teams off on the contentious grounds that Sharma, who was about to bowl, represented a danger to the batsmen.

While the crowd booed and started a slow handclap, India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and batsman VVS Laxman both smiled as they walked to the dressing room.

After a delay, during which the floodlights flickered and went off again and the natural light showed no discernible improvement, the players returned.

Neither batsman had any trouble picking up the ball. Cook passed his previous highest score of 235 with three off Mishra, although Morgan was nearly caught on 95 when he pulled the spinner to short leg and hit Gambhir in the back.

The ball looped into the air, but a bruised Gambhir was unable to react in time and Morgan completed his second Test century with a single through square leg from Mishra.

Morgan finally fell to Raina, caught by Sehwag at cover, only for Ravi Bopara to come in and take England past 600.

Bopara was lbw to Mishra for seven and Prior fell for five, caught by Sachin Tendulkar off Mishra at backward point.

delayed progress

Bresnan then joined Cook but their progress was again delayed by an 11-minute delay for bad light.

Again there was no obvious improvement to the light and Bresnan made a mockery of the decision to go off when he hit the first ball after the resumption for four through the covers.

Bresnan hit the same bowler for six an over later and England finally declared when Cook fell.

Gambhir hit the first ball of India's innings for three, but Anderson's next delivery to Sehwag was edged to Strauss, for the batsman's second first-ball duck of the Test.

Gambhir was lucky to survive an lbw shout against Graeme Swann in the 11th over and even the part-time spinner Kevin Pietersen - brought on with the light fading - got the ball to turn impressively before stumps.