Highlights : India vs England - Day 5 of 2nd Test Mohali 2008

Neither Yuvraj Singh nor Gautam Gambhir got their centuries, falling to smart fielding by Ian Bell, after which India's declaration left England a hypothetical 403 to win, or more pragmatically, 44 overs to bat. The hour before tea proved a testing passage, one in which England lost a wicket and Ian Bell survived a few very close shouts. Bar a collapse of colossal proportions, this Test will rationally taper out to a draw in the final session.

England had an hour to bat before tea. Their cautious approach was fully understandable, but Alastair Cook nicked Ishant Sharma to VVS Laxman at second slip. An out-of-form Bell poked and prodded, shuffled and swayed against pace and spin and England went into tea needing see out an hour and 40 minutes.

Resuming on 134 for 4, India had added 82 without fuss in a truncated 13-over morning session after thick fog delayed play by two-and-a-half hours. With only 68 overs possible, Gambhir and Yuvraj started guardedly before opening up with a range of aggressive strokes, Yuvraj fetching himself three sixes.

By the time lunch was taken, India's run rate for the morning was well over six and the way Yuvraj, especially, and Gambhir were batting, it appeared a spent England were cruising towards a bruising. Instead the two batsmen came out of the interval quite content to bide their time, but England snapped up three wickets.

If Bell's ramrod demolition of the stumps yesterday had snubbed Virender Sehwag before he could ignite, then his direct hit cut Yuvraj short of a century. Yuvraj swept the ball towards short fine leg and Bell swooped in to nail down the stumps with an accurate throw after Yuvraj had turned back.

Eight deliveries later, England saw the back of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who handed Monty Panesar his easiest wicket on a thoroughly disappointing tour. When Bell stunningly intercepted a loose cut to his left at backward point, Gambhir was short of his hundred by three runs as India promptly declared.

The morning session saw Yuvraj and Gambhir clinically bat England out of contention. India had dug themselves into a pattern of nervous watchfulness yesterday afternoon, their strenuous approach numbing a sparse crowd into a coma, but Yuvraj's sparkling innings before stumps had livened up proceedings.

This morning, as the gloom steadily cleared, Yuvraj carried on in the same vein and succeeded in drawing some aggression from Gambhir too, whose bat had attracted barnacles on day four.

Such are the subtleties of Test cricket that no solitary detail reveals so much about the game as the way a field is set. When Yuvraj and Gambhir came out to bat in the haze, Kevin Pietersen employed seven men on the off side to strangle the scoring. It didn't work.

The instructions would have been to pitch it on one side of the stumps, preferably a bit wide. Neither James Anderson nor Stuart Broad did that too well, and Yuvraj grabbed the initiative with a medley of punchy drives and slogs, including one particularly disdainful six off Anderson.

The last couple of Yuvraj's sixes came against his old friend Broad and flickered images of that famous over in Durban, when he hit six in a row. First came an audacious shot, a front-foot, flat-batted bludgeon over mid-on, and then a scoop over backward point. Broad then bowled a clever wide yorker which Yuvraj edged to third man for a single, and Gambhir saw out the over.

Once he raised his fifty from 174 balls, Gambhir allowed himself some sashayed clubs and open-armed steers wide of backward point. One foray down the track to Andrew Flintoff resulted in a thick edge over Matt Prior for four, who needed medical attention when Yuvraj's switch-hit struck him flush on the collar bone.

The rest of the day wasn't nearly as painful for England.

source : Cricinfo