Close England 37 for 0 (Butcher 32*, Trescothick 5*) trail India A 233 for 9 dec (Kale 122, Khoda 64, Flintoff 3 for 47, Johnson 3 for 56) by 196 runs
Scorecard

Richard Johnson took three wickets with his first nine deliveries for England, and his unlikely new-ball partner Andrew Flintoff picked up three more as England had the best of the first day of their tour match against India A at Jaipur.

After Johnson's dream start India A were in all sorts of trouble at 8 for 4, but England rather let them off the hook as Abhijit Kale stroked a classy 122, and crowd favourite Gangan Khoda 64. The tail fell away, and after a late flourish from Mark Butcher, England closed 196 runs behind with all ten first-innings wickets intact.

Having waited four months to get on the field in an England shirt, Johnson went from spear-carrier to star of the show in the space of nine deliveries.

There is usually someone in each England tour party who you struggle to identify in the official photograph. Someone who sets off full of enthusiasm but returns as anonymous as when he left: recall, or try to, Ashley Cowan, Graeme Swann, Jason Brown. This squad already has a few candidates for Mr Anonymous, and one of them is Mr Johnson.

After being called up and left out three times against Australia in the summer, he was again ignored for the two opening tour games. But when Matthew Hoggard was rested, Johnson got his first and possibly last chance, and he took it with both hands, charging through his early overs.

He has the look of a 1950s matinee idol as he runs in - dark and with a face that would suit a trilby - but he wasn't serving up any slushy stuff. Vinayak Mane, touted as a possible Test opener, edged his third ball, a stinging outswinger, to Jamie Foster (0 for 1). Two balls later, Yere Goud had also gone, off stump out of the ground to an inswinger (0 for 2). And Johnson wasn't done - the third ball of his next over swung in and trapped Gantam Gambhir back on his stumps for 5 (7 for 3). Not a bad first 10 minutes in England colours.

Flintoff wasn't going to let Johnson grab all the glory though. Bowling at a speed that looks impossible with that wrong-footed stumbling delivery, he conjured some steep lift off a grassy pitch. Rashmi Parida saw another short one coming, gulped, half-took his eye off the ball, and gloved it to Foster (8 for 4). He was the third batsman to make a duck.

England let their advantage slip either side of lunch with some indifferent fare, but Flintoff wrested it back in an outstanding spell. Running in from the far end like an athletic Dane with a stone in his shoe, Flintoff sent down eight overs for 24 and pillaged two wickets.

He was fast, accurate and repeatedly beat the batsmen with nifty, bouncy outswingers. Khoda, a Rajasthan player clad in a royal-blue helmet, had just hit his pre-lunch stride again when a Flintoff special bowled him for 64 (122 for 5).

Reetinder Singh Sodhi, who in one fiery Flintoff over had been hit in the box and forced to fence haphazardly at some rising deliveries, finally succumbed when he hung his bat out to an outswinger and was safely caught by Foster for 2 (136 for 6).

But Kale, who plays league cricket in England during the summer, and who had played second fiddle to Khoda before lunch, saved India A's face.

Tiny but powerful, Kale's innings grew up as the day went on. He started off nudging like an awkward adolescent, by mid-afternoon he was unveiling punchy off-drives, and by the time he went to his century with a swept six off Richard Dawson he was a confident businessman with a stash of dollars in his back pocket.

Kale was eventually dismissed for 122, caught by Mark Ramprakash at short leg as he pushed forward at Dawson (233 for 7).

The gods were smiling on the spinners at last - Ashley Giles finally took a wicket with one that turned and bounced, as Ajay Ratra obliged by giving Foster a tricky catch (233 for 8). Ratra walked for 26 and Giles was mobbed. Then with the score still on 233, Joshi played no shot to Dawson and was out for 0. India A declared and England had ensured that the Kale-led renaissance was ended before it got out of hand.

As England batted in the soft afternoon sunlight, Butcher took his turn to puff out his chest to Duncan Fletcher, gratefully dispatching a series of leg-stump half-volleys to the boundary. Marcus Trescothick was for once content to watch, serenely restricting himself to a gentle five not out.

Teams England 1 Mark Butcher, 2 Marcus Trescothick, 3 Michael Vaughan, 4 Nasser Hussain (capt), 5 Mark Ramprakash, 6 Craig White, 7 Andrew Flintoff, 8 James Foster (wk), 9 Ashley Giles, 10 Richard Dawson, 11 Richard Johnson.

India A 1 Vinayak Mane, 2 Gautam Gambhir, 3 Yere Goud, 4 Gagan Khoda, 5 Rashmi Parida, 6 Abhijit Kale, 7 Reetinder Sodhi, 8 Ajay Ratra (wk), 9 Sunil Joshi (capt), 10 Dodda Ganesh, 11 Iqbal Siddiqui.

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

© Wisden CricInfo Ltd