BIRMINGHAM: Alastair Cook’s career-high score of 294 left England on the verge of claiming the No. 1 test ranking and a demoralized India facing a heavy defeat in the third test at Edgbaston.Cook fell just short of a rare triple century, but he helped England pile on 710-7 before James Anderson’s dismissal of Virender Sehwag for a king pair meant India finished day three on 35-1, still trailing by 451 runs.
The four-match series between England and India was billed as a clash between the world’s two leading test teams, but by Friday had turned into a complete mismatch as the hosts posted their third highest test total.
England already leads the series 2-0 and only needs to avoid defeat in the final two tests to replace India as the world’s No. 1 test team.
The only disappointment of the day from the home side’s point of view was Cook’s failure to join a list of five England players to have scored triple centuries.
After 13 hours and 545 balls, he drove straight to Suresh Raina at square leg off the bowling of Ishant Sharma.
”It’s mad isn’t it, how you can still be disappointed when you’ve scored 290-odd,” Cook said. ”I suppose only cricket can do that to you, there’s a tinge of disappointment, but in reality I’m thrilled.”
It was a typically steady innings from Cook, who at one point faced 137 balls without scoring a boundary.
Cook and Eoin Morgan (104) put on 222 for the fourth wicket, while Tim Bresnan hit an unbeaten 53. Amit Mishra took 3-150 for India, but the tourists again contributed to their downfall by bowling 63 extras.
After Sehwag was out first ball for the second time in the match, Rahul Dravid reached 18 not out and Gautam Gambhir was unbeaten on 14 at stumps.
”We’ve put ourselves in a very good position in this game,” Cook said. ”There’s a lot of hard work to do tomorrow, but if we’re patient like we have been and bowl like we can do we can put India under a lot of pressure.”
Despite England’s dominance, Mishra struck a note of defiance. ”I’m very confident and positive that our batting line up will definitely get a draw here,” he said. ”The wicket is conducive to batting.”
England began the day on 456-2 and Morgan reached his half-century with a single from Praveen Kumar before rain caused a brief delay.
The hosts were on 503-3 when an early lunch was called due to further rain and scoring was slow when play resumed before the afternoon session briefly degenerated into a farce after an hour.
An electrical failure had cut the power in the 32 million pound ($52 million) New Stand at lunch, but when this was restored the floodlights then failed.
That led to the umpires taking the teams off when the natural light faded on the contentious grounds that Sharma, who was about to bowl, represented a danger to the batsmen.
When the players returned after a short delay, neither batsman had any trouble picking up the ball.
Cook passed his previous highest score of 235 with three off Mishra, while Morgan completed his second test century with a single through square leg from Mishra.
Morgan finally fell to Raina, caught by Sehwag at cover. Ravi Bopara, who replaced the injured Jonathan Trott in the team, managed to take England past 600 before he was out lbw for seven and Matt Prior was caught by Sachin Tendulkar on five —both wickets off the bowling of Mishra.
Bresnan then joined Cook but their progress was again held up by an 11-minute delay for bad light. Bresnan made a mockery of the decision to go off when he hit the first ball after the resumption for four through the covers.
Bresnan hit the same bowler for six an over later and England finally declared when Cook fell.
Gambhir hit the first ball of India’s innings for three, but Anderson’s next delivery to Sehwag was edged to Strauss.
Gambhir was lucky to survive an lbw shout against Graeme Swann in the 11th over and even part-time spinner Kevin Pietersen —brought on with the light fading —got the ball to turn impressively before stumps.
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