Solid start by England

Already denied the services of Steve Harmison and Andrew Flintoff through injury, England handed a debut to Chris Tremlett to make Monty Panesar the most experienced member of their attack with 17 appearances.

But any fears about how an attack with only 37 appearances between them could overcome India's formidable batting line-up were quickly dispelled by a strong start from England's batsman after captain Michael Vaughan won the toss.

Taking advantage of India's wayward new ball spells, England raced to 76 without loss after just an hour's play and by lunch they had progressed to a promising 115 for one.

Seamer Shanthakumaran Sreesanth, who had claimed 18 wickets in his previous three Tests earlier this year in South Africa, particularly struggled for accuracy.

He conceded two boundaries in his first over, Alastair Cook twice clipping him off his legs to the mid-wicket boundary, and conceded four byes in his next over when he drifted down leg-side beyond the despairing dive of wicketkeeper Mahendra Dhoni.

India captain made three bowling changes inside the first 15 overs to try to stem England's run flow, but it was not until he turned to the medium-paced swing of former captain Sourav Ganguly that the tourists made the breakthrough.

Taking the first over after drinks from the Pavilion End, Ganguly won an lbw appeal against Essex left-hander Cook for 36 when he was only half-forward and narrowly failed to get in another almost identical appeal against Vaughan two balls later.

It was only Ganguly's fourth Test wicket in the last six years, but having survived that shaky start, Vaughan began to look increasingly confident at the crease and quickly progressed to 23.

Out-of-sorts opener Andrew Strauss also battled through to an unbeaten 43, although he was dropped by Dinesh Karthik at backward point in the over before the interval.