Test cricket in 2008 for India and England drew to a gentle, wintry close yesterday. Two and a half hours were lost in the morning, as a heavy blanket of fog again shrouded the ground. When it lifted, a few hundred hardy souls, wrapped in blankets and shawls, were revealed waiting patiently for a final glimpse of the longest form of the game before the arrival of the new year and the Indian Premier League. Soon enough, the Punjab Cricket Association Stadium and the Kings XI Punjab will be rocking to the beat of Twenty20.

And when Test cricket is played as on the last day and a half of this game, who can blame them? India are a very good team, but if they want to become a great one they will have to show a little more ambition than was on display here. Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the India captain, had clearly decided the day before that there was no chance of a result, given the 49 overs that had already been lost to fog and bad light and a pitch that was playing as if it had been injected with Botox.

Had this not been a two-Test series, he might have been forced to be more aggressive; possibly, the recent run chases in Madras (Chennai) and Perth raised doubts and will have a negative effect by encouraging captains to be more cautious in future. The result was a meandering afternoon when everyone lost interest, not least Asad Rauf, who administered consecutive five-ball overs, and Dhoni, who at one stage had three men behind square on the leg side, incurring a no-ball.

India's players spent the morning playing football and when play began there was no inclination to force something out of nothing. Once Dhoni called a halt to the India innings shortly after lunch with a lead of 403, England had 43 overs to survive. They did so losing only Alastair Cook in the process, nibbling to second slip off Ishant Sharma.

England then played calmly to the close and Dhoni lifted the trophy, with the result that England now have not beaten India in a Test series since 1996, their longest drought against any Test match playing country.

Having lost the toss and conceded 450 in the first innings, Kevin Pietersen, the England captain, will be perfectly happy with the draw. Defeat in this series came as a result of five bad sessions in Madras but apart from those, England have more than held their own. Racing aficionados talk about collateral form and England have emerged with greater credit than Australia, according to local scribes.

The interests of the game, and the spectators, had been subordinated in the morning to the pursuit of statistics, namely whether Gautam Gambhir could become the first India batsman to score two hundreds in the same match against England and whether the local hero, Yuvraj Singh, could score a century on home turf. Thankfully, since personal milestones are worth celebrating only when achieved in the pursuit of something meaningful, neither was able to achieve them.

Gambhir, to his disgust, fell three short of his second hundred when he cut Graeme Swann into the hands of Ian Bell at point. Yuvraj was 14 shy when run out by an alert Bell at short fine leg, much to England's and Pietersen's delight.

Yuvraj had announced himself at the previous night's press conference with the words, “the pie chucker is here!” before playing Punch to Pietersen's Judy. Now he announced himself as one of the cleanest strikers of the ball in the game today, clubbing Stuart Broad for two mighty sixes, one over long-on baseball-style, the other, magnificently, over extra cover.

Pietersen, fully aware that Yuvraj has taken a liking to Broad in the past, removed his young bowler from the attack before further scarring could take place.

The only other item of note was that Pietersen again called upon Swann as his first-choice spinner, a development that will have Monty Panesar sweating over his Caribbean tour place. Panesar has been completely nullified by India's batsmen, so that he finished the tour a shadow of his normally enthusiastic self. A rare appeal for leg-before against Yuvraj in the afternoon summed up his state of mind: normally an event in itself, all raucous, unrestrained enthusiasm, this appeal was barely a whimper.

It summed up his tour and, sadly, the day.

Full scoreboard (India won toss)

India: First innings
G Gambhir c Cook b Swann 179
V Sehwag c Prior b Broad 0
R Dravid c Panesar b Swann 136
S R Tendulkar lbw b Swann 11
V V S Laxman lbw b Flintoff 0
Yuvraj Singh c Prior b Panesar 27
*†M S Dhoni c sub b Anderson 29
Harbhajan Singh c Swann b Panesar 24
Zaheer Khan b Flintoff 7
A Mishra b Flintoff 23
I Sharma not out 1
Extras (b 5, lb 5, nb 6) 16
Total (158.2 overs) 453

Fall of wickets: 1-6, 2-320, 3-329, 4-337, 5-339, 6-379, 7-418, 8-418, 9-446.

Bowling: Anderson 32-5-84-1; Broad 26-9-84-1; Flintoff 30.2-10-54-3; Panesar 23-2-89-2; Swann 45-11-122-3; Collingwood 2-0-10-0.

Second Innings
G Gambhir c Bell b Swann 97
V Sehwag run out 17
R Dravid b Broad 0
S R Tendulkar c Swann b Anderson 5
V V S Laxman run out 15
Yuvraj Singh run out 86
*†M S Dhoni c and b Panesar 0
Harbhajan Singh not out 5
Extras (b 10, lb 8, w 5, nb 3) 26
Total (7 wkts dec, 73 overs) 251

Fall of wickets: 1-30, 2-36, 3-44, 4-80, 5-233, 6-241, 7-251.

Bowling: Anderson 19-8-51-1; Broad 14-2-50-1; Flintoff 13-1-39-0; Swann 17-3-49-1; Panesar 10-0-44-1.

England: First innings
A J Strauss lbw b Zaheer 0
A N Cook lbw b Zaheer 50
I R Bell b Ishant 1
*K P Pietersen lbw b Harbhajan 144
P D Collingwood c Dhoni b Mishra 11
A Flintoff c Gambhir b Mishra 62
J M Anderson not out 8
†M J Prior c Dhoni b Harbhajan 2
S C J Broad b Harbhajan 1
G P Swann b Zaheer 3
M S Panesar c Gambhir b Harbhajan 5
Extras (b 1, lb 7, w 1, nb 6) 15
Total (83.5 overs) 302

Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-1, 3-104, 4-131, 5-280, 6-282, 7-285, 8-290, 9-293.

Bowling: Zaheer 21-3-76-3; Sharma 12-0-55-1; Yuvraj 6-1-20-0; Harbhajan 20.5-2-68-4; Mishra 24-0-75-2.

Second innings
A J Strauss not out 21
A N Cook c Laxman b Sharma 10
I R Bell not out 24
Extras (b 4, w 1, nb 4) 9
Total (1 wkt, 28 overs) 64

Fall of wicket: 1-18.

Bowling: Zaheer 3-0-11-0; Sharma 5-1-7-1; Harbhajan 11-3-25-0; Mishra 8-1-16-0; Dhoni 1-0-1-0.

First Test (Madras): India beat England by six wickets

Umpires: Asad Rauf (Pakistan) and D J Harper (Australia).

Match award: G Gambhir.

Series award: Zaheer Khan.