India cruise home by seven

India completed the easy task facing them this morning with a little bother, losing three wickets on their way to 73.

The three wickets all fell to Chris Tremlett, who recovered excellently from a poor start to pepper the opening pair with short stuff. After easing to 47, both playing some attractive strokes, both Dinesh Karthik and Wasim Jaffer fell to short balls from Tremlett.

Tremlett and James Anderson were then able to have Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar in some bother. They played and missed at their away singers, and struggled to get out the way when they banged it in short. But the target, just 73, was gradually being reached.

Dravid would be there at the end, Tendulkar would not, he pushed one from Tremlett to Alistair Cook, smartly positioned at leg gully. 11 were needed at Tendulkar’s demise, the winning runs themselves came through four byes, as James Anderson sent a yorker past Ganguly’s leg stump, which Matt Prior was unable to stop.

Those runs gave India a 1-0 lead in the series, with one to play. If England do not win at The Oval, they will fall to their first home series loss since the 2001 Ashes.

England 198
Alastair Cook 43, Ian Bell 31
Zaheer Khan 4/59, Anil Kumble 3/32

India 481
Sachin Tendulkar 91, Sourav Ganguly 79
Monty Panesar 4/101, Chris Tremlett 3/80

England 355
Michael Vaughan 124, Paul Collingwood 63
Zaheer Khan 5/75, Anil Kumble 3/104

India 73/3
Dineseh Karthik 22, Wasim Jaffer 22
Chris Tremlett 3-12

India win by seven wickets

Cricket Web Man of the Match: Zaheer Khan