Close India (24 for 1) trail England (238, Hussain 85, Trescothick 66, Harbhajan Singh 5-51) by 214 runs
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A mindnumbing collapse of 6 for 14 turned the first Test on its head and kneed England firmly in the groin in the evening sunshine at Mohali. Seven overs after tea, England were daring to dream at 224 for 4, but that was before Harbhajan Singh got to work. In chaotic scenes reminiscent of his singlehanded destruction of the Australians in March, Harbhajan whirled and twirled and picked up 5 for 6 in 7.3 overs. As one nation cursed, another danced with delirium. By the close India had eaten into England's total by 24 runs for the loss of Shiv Sunder Das.

The collapse began when Mark Ramprakash poked diffidently at Harbhajan and was caught by SS Das at silly point for 17 (224 for 5). The situation cried out for maturity. Instead England got Freddie Flintoff, who slogged mindlessly in Harbhajan's next over and was easily caught by Anil Kumble at backward point for 18 (227 for 6).

Fortified by this freebie, Harbhajan went looking for more bargains. He didn't have to look far. The over after Craig White was dropped by Deep Dasgupta behind the wicket, Harbhajan tempted James Foster to swipe across the line - and trapped him plumb in front for 0 (229 for 7). Foster is a student at Durham, but even some of his fellow undergraduates would have blushed at this one.

White followed in the next over, from Kumble, when he forgot that most Test teams tend to field a slip and dollied a late cut straight to Rahul Dravid for 5 (229 for 8). But it was Harbhajan who applied the coup de farce. First he persuaded Richard Dawson (5) to give VVS Laxman his fourth catch of the innings, at silly point (238 for 9). And next ball Matthew Hoggard pushed forward more in hope than expectation and bobbled a bat-pad to short leg.

Harbhajan and Kumble had combined to produce a spell of 15.3-8-13-6, when at one stage their joint effort was a harmless 23-2-90-1. This was entirely down to Marcus Trescothick and Nasser Hussain, who dominated the morning session after Mark Butcher had fallen for 4, guiding the fourth ball of the day from the debutant Tinu Yohannan to second slip.

From there, first Hussain, then Trescothick tucked into the inexperienced Indian seam attack, cutting and cover-driving with aplomb. Kumble bore the brunt of Trescothick's onslaught, disappearing for seven fours in his first six overs as Trescothick raced to 50 in 73 balls. By lunch (108 for 1), they had already broken the record for the highest second-wicket parthership by any Test team at Mohali - 104 by Marvan Atapattu and Roshan Mahanama for Sri Lanka in 1997-98.

Hussain moved to fifty soon after the interval, but Trescothick was on his way when he mistakenly shouldered arms to a rare one from Yohannan that cut back and shuddered into his off stump. Trescothick, who has now scored at least a half-century in each of his five first Tests against a new country, was out for 66 and England were 129 for 2.

Graham Thorpe kept the scoreboard ticking over nicely with a cameo 23 before driving ambitiously at the bustling seam-up of Iqbal Siddiqui and providing Laxman with another catch at second slip (172 for 3). It was the cue for some audacious aerial blows from Hussain, who briefly dented Harbhajan's figures by carting him over mid-on for four, launching him over extra-cover for six and slogging him over square leg for three.

But it couldn't last and on the stroke of tea Hussain prodded Harbhajan straight to Laxman at silly point to depart for 85 (200 for 4), thus marginally improving on his career average against India before this innings of just under 80.

It was the catalyst India needed, and after tea England resembled the rabbits-in-headlights of their predecessors in 1992-93. They did strike one blow when India came out to bat - Mark Butcher bowled Das for 2 as he tried to shoulder arms - but this was India's day.

And all without a mention of Virender Sehwag or Jagmohan Dalmiya. Things must be looking up.

India 1 SS Das, 2 Sanjay Bangar, 3 Rahul Dravid, 4 Sachin Tendulkar, 5 VVS Laxman, 6 Sourav Ganguly, 7 Deep Dasgupta, 8 Harbhajan Singh, 9 Anil Kumble, 10 Iqbal Siddiqui, 11 Tinu Yohannan.

England 1 Marcus Trescothick, 2 Mark Butcher, 3 Nasser Hussain (capt), 4 Graham Thorpe, 5 Mark Ramprakash, 6 Andy Flintoff, 7 Craig White, 8 James Foster (wkt), 9 James Ormond, 10 Richard Dawson, 11 Matthew Hoggard.

Lawrence Booth is assistant editor of Wisden.com.

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