London: India clawed their way back with late strikes to share the honours after allowing England to get off to a flying start on the truncated opening day of the first cricket Test at Lord’s on Thursday.

The host batsmen feasted on listless variety dished out to them in the morning but the Indian bowlers used the overcast conditions in the afternoon to pick vital wickets and restrict England to 268 for four at close.

Andrew Strauss broke his poor patch with a composed 96 while captain Michael Vaughan hit a fluent 79 to help their side wrest the early initiative but both fell in the final session — that was interrupted to stoppages — to let India back into the match.

At stumps, Kevin Pietersen was batting on 34, accompanied by night-watchman Ryan Sidebottom on 0.

The two interruptions in the final hour included a 53-minute stoppage due to bad light and drizzle. On either side of that lengthy suspension of play, India dismissed Strauss and Vaughan.

Strauss fell agonisingly four short of a well deserved century but had only himself to blame as he charged down the track to Anil Kumble and ended up edging it to Rahul Dravid at first slip.

Vaughan’s was a classic case of batsman losing concentration due to the break after being well set. The England skipper edged left-arm seamer Rudra Pratap Singh to Mahendra Singh Dhoni after looking in fine knick and set for a long haul.

In the very next over, Kumble had Paul Collingwood leg before to push England on the back foot. Kumble was clearly the best bowler on view with figures of two for 56 from 22 overs.

But until Strauss committed the hara-kiri, things looked gloomy for India as the three seamers — Zaheer Khan, Sreesanth and R.P. — failed to hit the right line and length.

Earlier, Zaheer began proceedings bowling a maiden over to Strauss. However, Sreesanth repeatedly strayed in line and was severely punished.

The Kerala pacer helped Cook in getting off the mark in style to the very first ball he faced when he bowled one at his pads and was easily dispatched to the square leg fence.

In the same over, Sreesanth again bowled Cook on his legs and the batsmen enjoyed depositing the ball behind square with a lovely flick.

Zaheer too lost direction in the fifth over of the innings and was pulled and turned past the square leg umpire for two fours by Cook.

England reached their 50 in just 39 minutes off just 52 and there were as many as eight fours in it. The first hour saw England scoring 76 runs without loss. Sourav Ganguly then provided the breakthrough by trapping Cook leg before in his very first over.

Meanwhile, a special stamp and first-day cover got released to mark 75 years of Test cricket for India.

(AGENCIES)

A FAMILY AFFAIR

Chris Tremlett joined the list of grandfather-grandson combination to play Tests when he made his England debut at Lord’s on Thursday. There is also a great grandfather-great grandson pair to have played Tests. Following is the list:

RICHARDSON-CHAPPELLS

* Viv Richardson (Aus, 19 Tests, 1924-1936)

* Ian Chappell (Aus, 75 Tests, 1964-1980)

* Greg Chappell (Aus, 87 Tests, 1970-1984)

* Trevor Chappell (Aus, 3 Tests, 1981)

THE HEADLEYS

* George Headley (WI, 22 Tests, 1930-1954)

* Dean Headley (Eng, 15 Tests, 1997-1999)

THE KHANS

* Jahangir Khan (Ind, 4 Tests, 1932-1936)

* Bazid Khan (Pak, 1 Test, 2005)

THE TREMLETTS

* Maurice Tremlett (Eng, 3 Tests, 1948)

* Chris Tremlett (Eng, 1 Test, 2007)

GREAT GRANDFATHER & GREAT GRANDSON

* William Cooper (Aus, 2 Tests, 1882-1884)

* Paul Sheahan (Aus, 31 Tests, 1967-1974)

Note: Majid Khan (Jahangir’s son and Bazid’s father) played for Pakistan, while Ron Headley (George’s son and Dean’s father) played for the West Indies.

COMPILED BY MOHANDAS MENON