England bowled out at tea, lead by 86

Mumbai, Nov 25 (IANS) A late burst by Harbhajan Singh helped India bowl out England for 413 but the visitors still managed to take an 86−run lead at tea on the third day of the second cricket Test at the Wankhede Stadium here Sunday.

England looked headed for a huge total but after Kevin Pietersen’s downfall, the tailenders crumbled under constant pressure of the Indian spinners.

Pietersen smashed 20 fours and four sixes on his way to 186 off 233 balls. Ojha continued his dream run in the series removing the dangerous Pietersen to open the floodgates for India.

Ojha finished with figures of 5−143, his fifth five−wicket haul in Tests. But there were ominous signs for India for the rest of the series with Pietersen comfortably negotiating the spinners and taking them for runs.

The South Africa−born batsman fell with the score on 382 and after that England lost four wickets for just 31 runs.

Matt Prior (21), who has been a revelation for the English this series, was involved in a mix−up with Stuart Broad and was run out.

Rest of the England tail hardly put up a fight with Harbhajan (2−74) taking two wickets in an over and Ravichandran Ashwin (2−145) finishing the job by dismissing Monty Panesar (4).

Earlier, England dominated the first session of play on the third day scoring 298/4 at lunch when they trailed by just 29 runs.

Resuming the day at 178 for two, England batsmen Alistair Cook and Kevin Pietersen first negotiated the early morning dew and then went on to score their respective 22nd centuries.

In−form skipper Cook made his second ton of the tour scoring 122, which included 13 boundaries and one splendid six.

IANS 2012-11-25 14:30:05