Close Board President's XI 256 for 2 (Sridharan Sriram 120*, Jacob Martin 83*), England XI 320 all out
Scorecard

This is a day both England and Wasim Jaffer will want to forget. Jaffer because of a first-ball duck while the rest of his team were winning brownie points from the watching Indian selectors; England because it was a sobering, unrewarding, stultifying seven hours.

But England mustn't forget, or today could become Groundhog Day. They bowled 82 overs and took only two wickets against a less-than-Test XI. Nasser Hussain switched his attack around - two overs here, three overs there - and they tried, they kept running, and they looked cheerful. But they have now spent nearly two days in the field on the tour and taken seven wickets for 629 runs. The worries about this vastly inexperienced bowling attack are not exactly being allayed.

The wicket was so slow that James Foster stood up first to Craig White, who bowled like a man with a terrible hangover, and then to James Ormond, and then even to Hoggard, who likes bowling in the heat and was the pick of the seamers. But after being reduced at one point to bowling with an eight-one field, even he won't be begging to take this pitch home. Neither, on today's evidence, will the spinners.

Martyn Ball bowled his first over for England at the age of 31, backside as broad as a bolster, with the look of a chubbier version of the man he replaced, Robert Croft. He was immediately smacked back over his head for two fours by Dinesh Mongia. Things improved, but the batsmen weren't exactly groping. The other specialist offspinner, Richard Dawson, started confidently, but as the day went on and the ball lost its grip he slowly faded into the gentle Hyderabad wind.

But all this was almost a sideshow to the crowd - for within the Board XI a game within a game was taking place, a game of impress the selectors. There is thought to be an opener's spot up for grabs in the Indian team and Sridharan Sriram had his chance today. The gods were smiling on him from the start, when his rival Jaffer drove loosely at Hoggard and was caught by Foster (3 for 1). Sriram, 25, normally a stylish batsman and in good form - he scored a hundred and an 80 in the recent MJ Gopalan Trophy - was under pressure to perform and it showed. To start with, it was like watching a brick wall build an innings - block, block, block. It took him 100 minutes to hit his first boundary.

But with his fifty under his belt, he celebrated with a gorgeous pull off Ormond, and little by little showed what he could do. His first fifty took 133 balls, his second only 63.

At the other end Dinesh Mongia made a power-packed 44, until Ball had the last laugh - Mongia drove to mid-on where Graham Thorpe leant forward and scooped up a low catch (60 for 2). This was the last wicket to fall in the day as Jacob Martin, the captain, joined in with some pretty back-foot drives. By the close he and Sriram had put on an unbeaten 190 for the third wicket.

At least Dawson and Hoggard had something to take away from the day. They had the statisticians gnawing their pencils when they put on 28 - an England record for the last wicket at this ground, beating the 17 by two other little-known figures, Alan Brown and Butch White in 1961-62.

England, though, will be grateful that Ashley Giles was able to field for two and a half hours, gingerly testing his legs on the heavy, sandy soil. Today showed just how much they need him to be fit for Mohali on Monday week. Teams England 1 Mark Butcher, 2 Michael Vaughan, 3 Nasser Hussain (capt), 4 Graham Thorpe, 5 Mark Ramprakash, 6 Craig White, 7 James Foster (wk), 8 Martyn Ball, 9 James Ormond, 10 Richard Dawson, 11 Matthew Hoggard.

Board President's XI 1 Wasim Jaffer, 2 S Sriram, 3 Dinesh Mongia, 4 Jacob Martin (capt), 5 Rohan Gavaskar, 6 Pankaj Dharmani (wkt), 7 Sanjay Bangar, 8 Murali Kartik, 9 Sarandeep Singh, 10 Surendar Singh Bagal, 11 Tinu Yohannan.

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

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