By IANS
Nottingham : Left-arm pacer Zaheer Khan took a superb five-wicket haul Monday to bowl India on the brink of a fabulous win over England in the second Test here. On Tuesday, India will need 63 more runs to win and go 1-0 up in the three-match series.
By close of the fourth and penultimate day of the match, India, chasing 73 runs for victory, were 10 without loss with Dinesh Karthik (6) and Wasim Jaffer (3) at the crease.
Earlier, Zaheer took his fifth five-wicket haul to take his match tally to nine and Anil Kumble bagged three to bowl England out for 355, possible largely due to captain Michael Vaughan's superb 17th century (124, 193 balls, 18x4s) and Paul Collingwood's resolute 63 (133 balls, 7x4s).
"This was my best bowling performance," a smiling Zaheer said after the day's play.
The English batsman performed much better than their first innings' 198, to which India replied with 481. Led by Vaughan, the England top order, except for first Test's century maker Kevin Pieterson and Ian Bell, finally came good Monday.
Openers Andrew Staruss (55, 133 balls, 6x4s) and Alastair Cook (23) did their bit while pacer Ryan Sidebottom chipped in with a 26-ball 25 (4x4s) towards the end of the innings.
But Monday was a day when nothing seemed to go wrong for India, who were saved from a certain defeat by rains in the first Test at Lord's, London.
The Indian bowling attack stuck to its task, fielders took the catches, and wicket-keeper Mahendra Singh Dhoni did well when tested fully on either side of the wicket by an erratic Sreesanth.
England started the day at 43 without loss, with Staruss (21) and Cook (17) at the crease, after India had taken a 283-run first-innings lead Sunday. Their partnership, however, failed to blossom Monday.
With the addition of just six runs, Zaheer, who swung the ball both ways throughout the day, began the demolition job by having Cook leg before the wicket.
But the Indian bowlers toiled for sometime as Strauss and Vaughan joined hands to launch an 81-run partnership. During his knock, Vaughan, playing the 124th innings of his 69th Test, completed 5,000 runs.
It was again Zaheer who broke blossoming the partnership by having Strauss caught behind the wicket for a well-compiled 55 – his 11th half-century.
After his century in the first Test, Pieterson failed to get going for the second time in the match, managing just 19. But before getting out he and Vaughan had scored 45 for the third wicket.
Then came the biggest stand of the innings. Vaughan and Collingwood got down to the task and raised 112, which was instrumental in taking the match into the fifth day.
At 287, Zaheer took two wickets in three balls. He first broke the Vaughan-Collingwood stand by having former bowled when the ball rolled down to dislodge just one bail after he had played it down.
Two balls later Zaheer bowled the best ball of the day to bring it into the right-handed Bell and found his pads preventing the ball hitting the stumps. The umpire agreed with the bowler's appeal.
Zaheer, who had taken four wickets in the first innings, finished with enviable figures of 27-10-75-5 while Kumble took three for 104. Although Rudra Pratap Singh did not get many wickets he also bowled extremely well.
Only Sreesanth was wayward as he failed to find a consistent length and line throughout the day. He was the only regular bowler to go wicketless.
SCOREBOARD
Second Test, Day 4, India vs. England, Trent Bridge, Nottingham
England (1st innings): 198
India (1st innings): 481
England (2nd innings, overnight 43/0):
Andrew Strauss c Dhoni b Khan 55
Alastair Cook lbw b Khan 23
Michael Vaughan b Khan 124
Kevin Pietersen lbw b Singh 19
Paul Collingwood c Karthik b Khan 63
Ian Bell lbw b Khan 0
Matt Prior b Singh 7
Chris Tremlett c Singh b Kumble 5
Ryan Sidebottom not out 25
Monty Panesar c Karthik b Kumble 4
James Anderson b Kumble 1
Extras: (byes 7, leg byes 6, wides 9, no balls 7) 29
Total: (all out in 104 overs) 355
Fall of wickets: 1-49 (Cook, 18.2 overs), 2-130 (Strauss, 44.2), 3-175 (Pietersen, 54.5), 4-287 (Vaughan, 82.4), 5-287 (Bell, 82.6), 6-304 (Prior, 90.5), 7-323 (Collingwood, 96.2), 8-329 (Tremlett, 97.3), 9-333 (Panesar, 99.5)
Bowling:
Zaheer Khan 27 10 75 5 (1w)
Sreesanth 21 2 60 0 (5nb, 3w)
Rudra Pratap Singh 18 5 52 2 (1w)
Anil Kumble 25 2 104 3 (2nb)
Sourav Ganguly 6 0 22 0
Sachin Tendulkar 7 0 29 0
India (2nd innings):
Dinesh Karthik batting 6
Wasim Jaffer batting 3
Extras: (lb 1) 1
Total: (for no wicket in 3 overs) 10
Bowling:
James Anderson 2 1 6 0
Ryan Sidebottom 1 0 3 0
Umpires: Simon Taufel (Australia) and Ian Howell (South Africa)
TV umpire: Nigel Llong (England)
Match referee: Ranjan Madugalle (Sri Lanka)