India vs England 1st Cricket Test, India 131/1 at Stumps on Day 4

For four days this Test has bubbled up and it finally burst into life on the fourth evening as Virender Sehwag pummelled an exhilarating 83, giving India an audacious start to chasing a daunting 387 for victory. Most of this match has been spent marvelling at the concentration of Andrew Strauss, who earlier in the day became the tenth England batsman to score twin hundreds but his innings, as well as Paul Collingwood's resolute 108, were quickly forgotten amid Sehwag's 68-ball onslaught. Rattled, the visitors were only calmed by a late Graeme Swann strike who trapped, crucially, Sehwag.

England didn't quite know what had hit them after Kevin Pietersen confidently declared on 311 for 9 - following a curiously negative afternoon session - as Sehwag and Gautham Gambhir added 117 in 22 overs. Even that marked a notable deceleration from the race-away start that saw the run-rate nudging double figures for the first few overs. The law of averages suggested India's top-order wouldn't suffer two consecutive collective failures and clear intent was shown to make up for their first innings failure. The target remains a long way off, but the final two hours have changed the feeling of the match.