No way back for England after freak Vaughan dismissal

Vaughan can rarely have batted better, not even when he took two huge centuries off India in England five years ago and not even when he batted as well against Australia as any Englishman can have done in the Ashes series that followed. Yet, ultimately, it will not be enough to save this second npower Test.

The England captain knew, with Zaheer Khan producing a display of world-class swing bowling yesterday, he would probably need to repeat his career-best 197, scored on this ground against this opposition, if his side were to escape Trent Bridge with parity in this series maintained.

It looked as if Vaughan might do it when he had driven and late-cut his way to 124, his 17th Test century and his fourth against India, with a collection of strokes that would have emphasised to him and to England that his powers, after the knee injury that almost cost him his career, remain indisputably intact.

Yet what was surely the cruellest dismissal Vaughan has experienced sparked a clatter of English wickets which saw them dismissed for 355 and left India with 73 needed to take a 1-0 lead into the final Test at The Oval. They reduced that target by 10 runs in the three overs that remained but their task was just too stiff to claim an extra half-hour.

This has been one of the most bad-tempered Tests in recent memory, and the unsavoury atmosphere was extended for much of yesterday. Yet, just as at Lord's, the match will be remembered more for the quality of the cricket. England, barring a miracle, will be beaten early today but they have not done too much wrong since being caught out by the elements on Friday.

The first session of the fourth day, as England set out in effect to bat for two days, was as good as Test cricket gets, Zaheer and RP Singh charging in with the intensity and skill of Wasim Akram in his prime to bombard Vaughan and Andrew Strauss after Alastair Cook had fallen to his fourth lbw in four innings in this series.

The swing offered by this most delightful of English Test grounds remained just as prodigious yesterday as on day one and Vaughan could easily have gone on 11 had Simon Taufel not rightly decided that he had failed to touch a Singh inswinger as the Indians celebrated prematurely and with gusto.

That brief scare apart, the England captain produced a masterclass and at lunch, when his side were on 129 for one, and even at tea when they were 221 for three, an escape just as great as that inspired by one of his predecessors, Mike Atherton, in Johannesburg 12 years ago was a real possibility.

Not only did Vaughan have to deal with the ability and nous Zaheer perfected at Worcestershire last season but he also had to contend with more poor behaviour that was again against the spirit of the game, India being as aggressive and spiteful as England have been for most of this summer.

Sri Sreesanth set the early tone with a barge into Vaughan and he followed that by bowling a dangerous beamer at Kevin Pietersen after Strauss had ended his best innings for a year with a loose waft outside off-stump. The apology was immediate but the suspicion remained.

Not to be outdone, Dinesh Karthik, Sourav Ganguly and Zaheer all let Pietersen know what they thought of him, no doubt in response to what can only be described as Sunday's 'jelly beangate' incident, before Singh firstly had a convincing appeal for caught behind turned down and then, next ball, ripped one into Pietersen's pads and almost punched his victim rather than the air as he acclaimed the resulting lbw. If that was a huge blow the real turning point came when India took the new ball with England going well on 270 for three. Dravid called his troops into a pre- new ball huddle and then unleashed Zaheer, Singh and his thoroughbred Anil Kumble to blow England away, the last seven wickets falling for 68 runs off 131 deliveries after the fateful departure of Vaughan in the third over with the new ball.

Looking to smother the exaggerated swing, Vaughan moved to the off-side, was hit just underneath his thigh pad by Zaheer and then saw the ball bounce slowly down and just bowl him. Two balls later Ian Bell, who had been struck a nasty blow on the head by Jimmy Anderson in practice, was trapped plumb in front again and the game was pretty much up.

The rest was something akin to a procession. Only Paul Collingwood offered any defiance until he became the fifth prime right-hander in the England line-up to be dismissed round the wicket, Zaheer claiming the England one-day captain as his fifth scalp of the innings and ninth in the match.

Collingwood could have gone earlier when he gloved Sreesanth down the leg- side to Mahendra Singh Dhoni only for Ian Howell, still having a match to forget, to say No.

What happened next was possibly the nastiest of the many unpleasant incidents Nottingham has witnessed in this game as a steamedup Sreesanth came round the wicket, overstepped by at least a foot and hurled a no-ball bouncer at Collingwood.

If Sreesanth could be given the benefit of the doubt over his beamer, what looked like a clear attempt to injure was unforgivable and he was quickly removed from the attack by his captain Rahul Dravid.

It has been that sort of match. But it is one that today leaves Vaughan facing the strong possibility of his first home series defeat as captain, one that he did so much yesterday to try to avoid.