India v England: live updates, scoreboard and stats I Mike Atherton's analysis I Simon Wilde on Dravid

Sooner or later someone was going to pay. Rahul Dravid has had a stinker of a year but you do not score more than 10,000 runs in Test cricket without having steel in your bones. Any fluency, like the Shivalik Hills that shade this ground, was largely hidden from view for much of yesterday, but his skill and determination were plain to see. For 4½ hours he battled, nose to the grindstone, detractors to quieten and a career to save, and 4½ hours to him is the equivalent of a morning jog to a marathon runner.

England will need to move this game forward more rapidly today if they are to have a chance of levelling the series, but with winter drawing in, bad light likely to affect both ends of the day and Dravid again looking like an impregnable wall rather than a flaky garden fence, the touring team went to their beds yesterday evening in sombre mood. When bad light curtailed play 45 minutes early, Dravid had 65 to his name and, given his recent drought, he had the look of a man whose thirst needs to be well and truly slaked.

Alongside him was someone for whom batting right now seems an altogether more simple and pleasurable business. Gautam Gambhir has come of age as a cricketer in 2008, scoring more one-day international runs than any other Indian and cementing his place at the top of the order. He brought up an elegant hundred just before the close, his third in his past four Tests, and his partnership of 173 with Dravid gave India the first-day’s honours.

Taking only one wicket in the day represents a miserable return for England, but in truth they did not bowl badly. The pitch, after offering some lateral movement in the first half-hour, settled down to play placidly, there was negligible turn for the spinners and enough drizzle to prevent the quicker bowlers from finding much reverse swing with the old ball. Tactically, Kevin Pietersen had a much better, much more proactive day than in Madras (Chennai) on Monday.

His first move came at the toss when he announced that Stephen Harmison, fully fit but not necessarily raring to go, had been dropped. When Harmison did get the ball in his hand in Madras he had looked more penetrative than James Anderson, so the only conclusion to draw from his demotion is that patience with his attitude is wearing thin. Pietersen virtually confirmed as much at the toss when he said that he liked Stuart Broad’s “positive attitude” and “the way he carries himself”. The inference was clear.

Never an enthusiastic traveller, and even less so after the bombs in Mumbai, Harmison approached his task in Madras with about as much relish as a vegetarian might approach a meat feast. Broad does not have Harmison’s natural qualities, his pace or bounce, but at least he looks like a man who enjoys his work. Taking the new ball, he leant forward eagerly into his run, as if he could not wait to get at the batsmen, knees pumping and blond hair greased back by the breeze. He had to wait only three balls for his first success.

Virender Sehwag, man-of-the-match award from Madras still gleaming in his kit bag, swaggered out looking ready for a repeat dose of carnage. He missed his first two balls, as Broad found some late movement away from the bat, then swished again at his third, attempting a drive through mid-off but only edging through to the wicketkeeper. Hero one week; mug the next. ’Twas ever thus.

And so to Dravid, who came into the match with his place questioned and his captain talking of dropping him down the order. He began by treating every ball as a threat rather than an opportunity. If there was any temptation to come out swinging, it was not apparent; if he was going to go down, he would go down trusting an approach and method that has brought him a glut of runs.

Accordingly, while Gambhir skipped down the pitch to smite Monty Panesar over his head and carved the seam bowlers over the slips, Dravid concentrated on defence. For a batsman such as Sehwag, a defensive shot is a last resort when all other options have been exhausted. Must I really block this one? OK, then. For Dravid, a defensive shot is the bedrock of his game and he commits to it with all his being. What a like-minded soul, Geoffrey Boycott, called being positive in defence.

Dravid’s approach allowed Pietersen more control in the field than he had enjoyed in Madras, but he created control for himself by being less concerned with saving boundaries. There was an attempt, not used, in Madras, to squeeze the batsmen using old-fashioned fields. Singles were harder to come by. Graeme Swann, for example, who outbowled Panesar again, bowled an afternoon spell with just a slip and a ring of fielders. It sounds defensive, but neither Gambhir nor Dravid could get the ball away and became increasingly frustrated. Swann’s nine overs in the afternoon cost only 16 runs and he might have had Gambhir three times, once when put down by Paul Collingwood, a fiendishly difficult chance at slip.

This was England at their workmanlike best. But workmanlike is sometimes not enough to bowl out good batsmen on good pitches. England cannot live with Harmison, but nor can they live without him.

Scoreboard

India: First Innings
G Gambhir not out 106
V Sehwag c Prior b Broad 0
R Dravid not out 65

Extras (lb 3, nb 5) 8
Total (1 wkt, 72 overs) 179

S R Tendulkar, V V S Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, *†M S Dhoni, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, A Mishra and Ishant Sharma to bat.

Fall of wicket: 1-6.

Bowling: Anderson 15-3-29-0; Broad 16-7-45-1; Flintoff 13-2-31-0; Panesar 13-2-41-0; Swann 15-4-30-0.

England: A N Cook, A J Strauss, I R Bell, *K P Pietersen, A Flintoff, P D Collingwood, †M J Prior, G P Swann, S C J Broad, J M Anderson, M S Panesar.

Umpires: Asad Rauf (Pakistan) and D J Harper (Australia).
Series detail: First Test: Madras (India won by six wickets).
Television: Sky Sports 1: Live coverage from 4am.