England pay for dropped chances

Already missing Andrew Flintoff, who suffered a recurrence of problems to his left ankle, England also lost Ravi Bopara after only seven balls when he suffered a suspected dislocated right thumb dropping a sharp caught and bowled chance.

Such thinning resources allowed the tourists, who were helped by a series of dropped catches, reach 286 for four when rain stopped play after 47.1 overs after being put into bat in seamer-friendly conditions by England captain Paul Collingwood.

India, needing victory to prevent England winning the series, started cautiously and scored only seven runs from the opening five overs from James Anderson and Jon Lewis, who was brought into the side as Flintoff's replacement.

But the sixth over of the innings was the signal for India to accelerate with Sachin Tendulkar hitting four boundaries in five balls off Lewis en route to dominating a 118-run opening stand with Sourav Ganguly.

Tendulkar was fortunate to survive on 33 when he was dropped by wicketkeeper Matt Prior standing up to the stumps off Collingwood, and went on to hit 71 off 59 balls, including 13 fours.

Prior made amends by dismissing Tendulkar with a sharp catch up to the stumps off Lewis, but otherwise England's fielding failed to reach the standards set previously in the series.

Ganguly fell seven overs later after driving Panesar into the deep for 59, but Gautam Gambhir was missed on 19 and 40, Yuvraj Singh was also dropped on 10 and Mahendra Dhoni was dropped before he had scored by Prior standing up to the stumps off Collingwood.

Those escapes allowed Gambhir to contribute 51 towards a 94-run stand with Yuvraj before being caught in the deep off Stuart Broad, while Yuvraj was caught at long on by Anderson having hit 72 off 57 balls.