Birmingham: On a day of contrasting fortunes, where one opener got a double hundred and the other a King Pair, England firmed their grip on day three of the third Test on Friday with a first innings lead of 486 runs.
Alastair Cook's 294 helped his team reach710/7, while consecutive first ball duck for Virender Sehwag left India with question whether fully-fit is better than a half-fit sehwag.
Cook was supported by Eoin Morgan (104) and Tim Bresnan (54 Not Out) on Friday, as they extended India's toil on the field to over two days. For India, Amit Mishra was the top wicket-taker with three wickets, with two to Praveen Kumar and one each to Ishant Sharma and Suresh Raina.
At the end of play, India were 35/1, with Gautam Gambhir (14) and Rahul Dravid (18) preventing any further damange by James Anderson, who dismissed Sehwag, but still trailing England by 451 runs.
On resumption, Cook's moment of joy arrived soon when a flick off his legs for a couple brought up the England run-machine's 19th Test century, which is also his fourth this year.
Cook reached the milestone in 378 balls, including 27 hits to the boundary. En route, the opener also took his partnership with Eoin Morgan past the 100-run mark.
But the second rain delay inside the first session forced an early lunch, with England's score of 503/3 giving them a lead of 279 runs.
England resumed their business of scoring runs after lunch Cook and Morgan stretched the lead past 300, with Morgan inching closer to his century. But bad light forced the players to walk back into the dressing room for the third time on Friday as a power outage prevented the floodlights from coming.
But just like Cook, Morgan too resumed play after the third weather delay with a personal milestone: his second Test century, which followed the 200-run partnership mark for the England pair.
It was Morgan's second Test century and came off 188 balls with 10 fours. But just when Morgan (104) looked like putting the foot on the accelerator with a four over part-timer Raina's head, an uppish drive was grabbed by Virender Sehwag in the covers to give Raina a wicket against the run of play.
The first wicket for India on Day 3, which also ended the 222-run Morgan-Cook partnership for the fourth wicket, led to two more in quick succession.
While England were looking to press on, Amit Mishra bought some cheap wickets when he trapped Ravi Bopara (7) in front and induced a top-edge off Matt Prior's (5) sweep that was taken by Sachin Tendulkar. Meanwhile, the England score went past 600.
The ball was spinning viciously for Raina and Mishra by now, which further emphasised how important it was for India to score big in their first innings.
Trent Bridge hero Tim Bresnan joined Cook, who was batting on 250-plus, on Prior's dismissal; and when an outside edge from Bresnan's bat ran down to the third-man boundary, England lead went past 400.
Tea was around the corner and the tired Indian legs showed some fight in the second session of the day by taking three wickets, but the 143 runs they conceded saw England score swell to 646/6, giving them a lead of 422 at the stroke of Tea.
The biggest anticipation in the post-Tea session was whether Cook will get to his maiden triple century and will England declare on Friday. And with Cook just 34 runs away and more than two days' play left, Strauss was in no hurry to call his boys back.
Bresnan once again showed his value with the bat in another fluent innings as tired Indian bowlers couldn't make use of the third new ball which Dhoni available right away.
However, light once again deteriorated, forcing the umpires to halt play for the fourth time, with England 683/6 and Cook just 16 runs away from the triple.
India are already trailing the series 2-0 and a defeat here will see England take the number one position in the Test rankings.
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