The English cricket team was aspiring to maintain the form that took them to second place in the ICC Test Championship and helped them to win the 2005 Ashes series at home to Australia.

This goal was substantially hindered by an injury to the captain Michael Vaughan; the swing bowler Simon Jones and the absence of Ashley Giles who missed the tour for an operation.

As well as this, stand-in captain Marcus Trescothick flew home for "personal reasons", not wishing to divulge further, leaving Andrew Flintoff, who missed the birth of his son, to take on the title of skipper for the first time having to captain two maiden international cricketers on the English side: Alastair Cook and Monty Panesar.

On day 3, England's seam bowlers, in particular Matthew Hoggard, produced an inspired performance to engineer a middle order collapse.

India again lost Sehwag early, but Dravid and Jaffer again formed a solid partnership that England were unable to break for two sessions.

India then injected some life into the game by making a sudden charge at the target, despite the fact they still needed 170 runs to win.

Irfan Pathan and Mahendra Singh Dhoni were promoted up the order to accelerate the scoring, and England had to quickly adopt to a one-day scenario to protect boundaries and try and vary the bowling.

England overall were pleased to hold a strong Indian team to a draw despite several of their key players missing, and went into the second test with renewed confidence.

Following their second test defeat, England suffered a further injury blow when Alastair Cook developed an upset stomach on the morning of the match.

Owais Shah made his debut for the tourists, and Shaun Udal was also called into the side to replace Liam Plunkett.

It was believed that this decision was based on the perceived weakness of England's spin attack, who would not be able to exploit conditions on the final day of the match.

India's reply started with Virender Sehwag, Wasim Jaffer and Sachin Tendulkar all being dismissed cheaply to leave the hosts on 28/3.

Tendulkar in particular was a concern for the Indians, taking a long time to score a solitary run and eventually being dismissed after facing 21 deliveries for that single.

Dravid edged a ball from Flintoff to the wicketkeeper off the third delivery after the lunch break, and Tendulkar was caught at short leg off the bowling of Shaun Udal next over.

The Indian batsmen struggled with Udal's bowling, who obtained significant help from the pitch, and he would go on to take 4 wickets in the second innings at a cost of just 14 runs.

Dhoni skied a ball off Udal, only for Monty Panesar to miss the chance as it landed around 10 feet from where he was, despite having ample time to position himself to take it.

With the score on 99/9, the last man Munaf Patel managed a single to bring up the India 100, but he too then fell attempting to slog Udal out of the park.

India, on the other hand, came under extreme criticism for the loss and questions were asked of Dravid's decision to field first, as well as the batsmen's technique and application during the second innings when they collapsed from 75/3 to 100 all out.

Suresh Raina, with his maiden ODI half-century, and Mahendra Singh Dhoni set a new record for the sixth wicket partnership for India in One-day Internationals.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni (96) and Ramesh Powar (54) lifted the home team to a more respectable total with a century stand for the sixth wicket.

Debut of Robin Uthappa as the Indian opener saw him hit 12 fours and one six before being run out by Geraint Jones after James Anderson dived for a ball to stop a boundary and threw it back to the wicket keeper.