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Tea England 191 (Ojha 5-45, Ashwin 3-80) trail India 521 for 8 dec by 330 runs
File photo: R Ashwin and Pragyan Ojha bowled splendidly on an increasingly responsive surface © Associated Press
Ahmedabad has suffered a steep drop recently in the number of vultures circling the city, but those not affected by urbanisation and poisoning will find plenty to encourage them as long as England's batsmen face Indian spin bowling.
It took only 56.2 overs of the third day for India to take the last seven England wickets and enforce the follow-on in the hope of a quick kill in the opening Test. A lone vulture wheeled overhead as the innings approached its close but when the news gets round that England's malady persists others will surely follow.
Matt Prior marshalled some late-order resistance against the old ball until he became the fifth victim for Pragyan Ojha, bowled seeking a boundary to raise his fifty. He was assisted in adding 94 for the last three wickets by blocking from Tim Bresnan and a gung-ho approach from Stuart Broad but it brought meagre consolation for England.
They sorely needed a remedy second time around that might not save the Test but would pronounce themselves still redoubtable opponents in the three Tests to follow.
England have no problems with spin. Psychologically, they have to say that. The evidence, though, remains contrary. India's spinners, R Ashwin and Ojha, bowled magnificently on the third morning at the Motera and England predictably subsided in exacting conditions.
Four wickets fell for 69 runs in the morning session - Kevin Pietersen, Ian Bell, Alastair Cook and Samit Patel (whose innings was a walking advert for the benefits of DRS) - as England reached lunch still 212 runs away from surviving the follow-on, with only four wickets remaining.
Ojha, looping up his left-arm slows at a gentle pace, bowled Pietersen and had Bell caught in the deep first ball - one of the most misconceived dismissals by an England batsman since Mike Gatting had a dabble at the reverse sweep in the 1987 World Cup final.
Ashwin accounted for Cook, whose accession to the England Test captaincy has come at a most unpromising juncture. Cook's methodical resistance took him to 41, the one innings to command respect, before Ashwin caused him to reach for one that turned and edge to Virender Sehwag at first slip.
India would have had more wickets as well had the BCCI fallen in step with the rest of the world and accepted DRS. It was a gruelling morning for two highly-experienced umpires, Aleem Dar and Tony Hill, and with no review system in place the fear of giving a faulty dismissal in favour of the spinners seemingly soon crept into the consciousness.
Patel, on 4, looked stone dead, when he played across a delivery from Ashwin and was struck in front of middle. You did not need a predictive path, which the BCCI disallows television from showing, to know that Dar had erred. When Dar did give out Patel lbw to Umesh Yadav, in a flirting appearance of pace bowling, you did not need a predictive path to know that the ball was slipping down the leg side.
There had been enough clues on the second evening, never mind the past year, to suggest that England would face a troubled morning and so it proved to be. Ashwin and Ojha bowled splendidly on an increasingly responsive surface, finding more turn than Graeme Swann had achieved in what was virtually a single-handed assault for England on the first two days.
Right from the outset, England were up against it. Pietersen was at his most frenzied, bent upon using his feet to the spinners, but if he was constantly on the move it was not necessarily in the right direction. He nearly yorked himself in Ojha's first over and had to dive back into the crease as Gautam Gambhir tried to run him out from silly point. In Ojha's next over, he charged again and MS Dhoni missed a leg-side stumping.
When umpire Hill turned down an lbw appeal from Ojha, he faced an interrogation from bowler and captain alike as to whether Pietersen had played a shot, probably on the grounds that a player of his quality could not conceivably miss the ball by such a distance.
It all ended when Pietersen, this time remaining in his crease, tried to stay inside the line of the ball and was bowled, missing one that turned only slightly by quite a distance. Left-arm spin gets into his head and likes what it finds.
Bell's first-ball dismissal was mental frailty dressed up as aggressive intent, an attempt to dance down the wicket to strike Ojha down the ground ending in a mis-hit off the bottom of the bat to Sachin Tendulkar at mid off. To call it rabbit-in-the-headlight stuff was an insult to rabbits. It has yet to be proved that a rabbit sits in its burrow proclaiming: "I am going to be a tough rabbit, I am going to be an adventurous rabbit. I have no idea about the speed of the car or the lie of the road, I am going to take on this car from the start, come what may." Or maybe they do and they are the ones that get splattered.
Cook and Patel, although finding few scoring opportunities, did at least have the wherewithal to try to unravel India's spin-bowling mysteries. Cook's tendency to fall over on leg stump was probed, but he survived it, swept with certainty at times, and was the one England player who could be dismissed with pride intact.
England could also have lost Matt Prior to an inviting full toss - Prior pulled straight to deep-square leg where Zaheer Khan was unable to hold a running catch. England were at least spared that embarrassment.
As welcome as an eighth-wicket stand of 47 between Prior and Bresnan was for England, it was eased by a softening ball and a greater emphasis on pace bowling (in India, on pitches like these, it is the quicks who have to bowl with the old ball). When Ojha did make one spit in a manner comparable to the pre-lunch session, Bresnan poked it to slip.
Dhoni's faith in Zaheer's old-ball skills paid off when he found some inswing to have Broad lbw. Swann, the best player of spin in England's lower order, found himself coming in at No. 11 and faced two balls before Prior succumbed, his chief involvement to check with India if they intended to make England bat again.
File photo: R Ashwin and Pragyan Ojha bowled splendidly on an increasingly responsive surface © Associated Press
Ahmedabad has suffered a steep drop recently in the number of vultures circling the city, but those not affected by urbanisation and poisoning will find plenty to encourage them as long as England's batsmen face Indian spin bowling.
It took only 56.2 overs of the third day for India to take the last seven England wickets and enforce the follow-on in the hope of a quick kill in the opening Test. A lone vulture wheeled overhead as the innings approached its close but when the news gets round that England's malady persists others will surely follow.
Matt Prior marshalled some late-order resistance against the old ball until he became the fifth victim for Pragyan Ojha, bowled seeking a boundary to raise his fifty. He was assisted in adding 94 for the last three wickets by blocking from Tim Bresnan and a gung-ho approach from Stuart Broad but it brought meagre consolation for England.
They sorely needed a remedy second time around that might not save the Test but would pronounce themselves still redoubtable opponents in the three Tests to follow.
England have no problems with spin. Psychologically, they have to say that. The evidence, though, remains contrary. India's spinners, R Ashwin and Ojha, bowled magnificently on the third morning at the Motera and England predictably subsided in exacting conditions.
Four wickets fell for 69 runs in the morning session - Kevin Pietersen, Ian Bell, Alastair Cook and Samit Patel (whose innings was a walking advert for the benefits of DRS) - as England reached lunch still 212 runs away from surviving the follow-on, with only four wickets remaining.
Ojha, looping up his left-arm slows at a gentle pace, bowled Pietersen and had Bell caught in the deep first ball - one of the most misconceived dismissals by an England batsman since Mike Gatting had a dabble at the reverse sweep in the 1987 World Cup final.
Ashwin accounted for Cook, whose accession to the England Test captaincy has come at a most unpromising juncture. Cook's methodical resistance took him to 41, the one innings to command respect, before Ashwin caused him to reach for one that turned and edge to Virender Sehwag at first slip.
India would have had more wickets as well had the BCCI fallen in step with the rest of the world and accepted DRS. It was a gruelling morning for two highly-experienced umpires, Aleem Dar and Tony Hill, and with no review system in place the fear of giving a faulty dismissal in favour of the spinners seemingly soon crept into the consciousness.
Patel, on 4, looked stone dead, when he played across a delivery from Ashwin and was struck in front of middle. You did not need a predictive path, which the BCCI disallows television from showing, to know that Dar had erred. When Dar did give out Patel lbw to Umesh Yadav, in a flirting appearance of pace bowling, you did not need a predictive path to know that the ball was slipping down the leg side.
There had been enough clues on the second evening, never mind the past year, to suggest that England would face a troubled morning and so it proved to be. Ashwin and Ojha bowled splendidly on an increasingly responsive surface, finding more turn than Graeme Swann had achieved in what was virtually a single-handed assault for England on the first two days.
Right from the outset, England were up against it. Pietersen was at his most frenzied, bent upon using his feet to the spinners, but if he was constantly on the move it was not necessarily in the right direction. He nearly yorked himself in Ojha's first over and had to dive back into the crease as Gautam Gambhir tried to run him out from silly point. In Ojha's next over, he charged again and MS Dhoni missed a leg-side stumping.
When umpire Hill turned down an lbw appeal from Ojha, he faced an interrogation from bowler and captain alike as to whether Pietersen had played a shot, probably on the grounds that a player of his quality could not conceivably miss the ball by such a distance.
It all ended when Pietersen, this time remaining in his crease, tried to stay inside the line of the ball and was bowled, missing one that turned only slightly by quite a distance. Left-arm spin gets into his head and likes what it finds.
Bell's first-ball dismissal was mental frailty dressed up as aggressive intent, an attempt to dance down the wicket to strike Ojha down the ground ending in a mis-hit off the bottom of the bat to Sachin Tendulkar at mid off. To call it rabbit-in-the-headlight stuff was an insult to rabbits. It has yet to be proved that a rabbit sits in its burrow proclaiming: "I am going to be a tough rabbit, I am going to be an adventurous rabbit. I have no idea about the speed of the car or the lie of the road, I am going to take on this car from the start, come what may." Or maybe they do and they are the ones that get splattered.
Cook and Patel, although finding few scoring opportunities, did at least have the wherewithal to try to unravel India's spin-bowling mysteries. Cook's tendency to fall over on leg stump was probed, but he survived it, swept with certainty at times, and was the one England player who could be dismissed with pride intact.
England could also have lost Matt Prior to an inviting full toss - Prior pulled straight to deep-square leg where Zaheer Khan was unable to hold a running catch. England were at least spared that embarrassment.
As welcome as an eighth-wicket stand of 47 between Prior and Bresnan was for England, it was eased by a softening ball and a greater emphasis on pace bowling (in India, on pitches like these, it is the quicks who have to bowl with the old ball). When Ojha did make one spit in a manner comparable to the pre-lunch session, Bresnan poked it to slip.
Dhoni's faith in Zaheer's old-ball skills paid off when he found some inswing to have Broad lbw. Swann, the best player of spin in England's lower order, found himself coming in at No. 11 and faced two balls before Prior succumbed, his chief involvement to check with India if they intended to make England bat again.