Pietersen misses double hundred, Bell 19 away from hisIan Bell, with his 16th century (181 batting), and Kevin Pietersen, with his 19th (175), subjugated India on the second day of the fourth Test here at The Oval.
With two-thirds of the first day lost to rain, the game needed advancing. The third-wicket partnership of 350 helped do that marvellously, England finishing on 457 for three.
India started significantly better than it had on Thursday. Ishant Sharma, easily India's best bowler, struck in the morning's first over. Having beaten Alastair Cook with a slanted delivery of just short of a length, Ishant pitched it further up.
Cook was caught on the move: his front heel struck the turf as he edged the ball, a sign he hadn't had time to set himself. The length tempted the batsman. The wide line and the angle from over the wicket forced him out of a stable position.
Ishant's first spell read 6-3-7-1. He very nearly had Bell in it as well. An unexpected bouncer hurried the batsman into a pull-stroke he had very little control over. The square-leg fielder was just evaded; the delivery certainly deserved a wicket.
Heightened intensity
The ground-fielding matched the heightened intensity of the bowling. Suresh Raina was sharp and athletic as he usually is, but Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag made diving stops as well, ensuring a measure of pressure was built.
Andrew Strauss was kept to two runs in the first hour. The last delivery before drinks was a sucker ball from Sreesanth: it appeared a wide half-volley pleading to be hit. Strauss saw in it the release he had been seeking; he could only reach enough of it to touch a catch to M.S. Dhoni behind the stumps.
India didn't create another chance till the last ball before lunch, but it kept England to 51 runs in the session. Pietersen glanced Ishant to leg-slip. The ball fell short, which the replays confirmed, and the players left the field for lunch.
Amit Mishra and Sreesanth were entrusted with the bowling after the break. Pietersen and Bell chose a bowler each to attack, the former taking the leg-spinner, the latter, the moody swing-bowler. The pair raised 84 in 14 overs after lunch, driving England forward and Dhoni to despair.
Pietersen intimidated Mishra, swinging him repeatedly against the break. To one delivery, his bat descended in a wide, unorthodox arc, so a straight-hit was made, but almost in the manner of a hockey drag-flick.
Mishra went wider and wider to compensate. Pietersen muscled him through the off-side, slapping the ball past cover with immense power.
Gentle and graceful
Bell took Sreesanth apart gently and gracefully. It was an absorbing contest, the full, swinging ball against the drive, and the batsman won it, playing the stroke with splendid poise, not once over-reaching himself or over-hitting the ball. When the bowler changed his length or his line, Bell pulled or glanced.
Dhoni had no choice but to recall Ishant. But by this stage, Pietersen was moving around the crease, creating havoc with everyone's radars.
India missed a trick by not stationing short-leg. It forces him to reconsider his forward, lateral movement, and a batsman like Pietersen has to be out-hustled.
Pietersen also did something Bell does rather well: instead of lunging forward all the time to take the ball on the rise, he held his stroke on occasion, delaying it to run the ball down to vacant third-man.
Neither R.P. Singh, bowling at medium-pace after a half-respectable morning spell, nor Mishra, directing his leg-breaks from around the wicket into whatever rough had been created, could stem the run-flow.
In his 80s, Pietersen mis-timed a lofted stroke off Raina's part-time slow bowling, but R.P. Singh misjudged the trajectory and didn't have the athleticism to compensate at long-off.
The centuries
Bell reached his century before tea; Pietersen brought his up immediately after the break with a smashed pull. The next ball — another bouncer from Ishant, but directed better — provoked a false-pull. Gambhir back-pedalled and side-stepped, got himself in a tangle, dropped the catch, and hit his head in falling.
Sreesanth bowled a heartening spell with the second new ball after tea, increasing his pace to the late 80s (mph) and curling the ball away from the right-handers. He picked a fight with Pietersen.
The batsman took the duel though, walking down the wicket in the last over of the bowler's spell to swat him straight before playing a contemptuous pull.
Pietersen also won the race to 150, beating his partner by three minutes. The batsmen were doing pretty much what they wanted to at this stage; they had beaten the fight out of the Indians. Raina caught Pietersen off his bowling to end the six-and-a-half-hour wait for a wicket, but it was scant consolation on a day that had begun well for India.






England — 1st innings: A. Strauss c Dhoni b Sreesanth 40 (106b, 5x4), A. Cook c Sehwag b Ishant 34 (87b, 4x4), I. Bell (batting) 181 (304b, 17x4, 2x6), K. Pietersen c & b Raina 175 (232b, 27x4), J. Anderson (batting) 3 (18b); Extras (b-2, lb-7, nb-9, w-6): 24.
Total (for three wickets in 123 overs): 457.
Fall of wickets: 1-75 (Cook), 2-97 (Strauss), 3-447 (Pietersen).
India bowling: R.P. Singh 30-7-96-0, Ishant 27-7-81-1, Sreesanth 23-2-95-1, Raina 12-1-36-1, Mishra 29-2-129-0, Tendulkar 2-0-11-0.