Opener Ben Duckett bossed a lacklustre Indian attack smashing a fine century as England inched closer towards victory despite losing four wickets with a session's play left in the opening Test here on Tuesday.

In pursuit of a target of 371, Duckett flayed Indian bowlers to score 149 off 170 balls as England reached 269 for 4 at tea with only 102 runs required in the final session on the fifth day.

Joe Root (14 batting) and skipper Ben Stokes (13 batting) with a cumulative experience of 266 Test appearances between them will need to put the finishing touches in the final session.

Left-handed Duckett did survive a quality morning spell from Jasprit Bumrah (0/55 in 16 overs) but stuck to his strengths with amazing conviction, laying a foundation for victory with a 188-run opening stand alongside Zak Crawley (65).

The rain break in the post-lunch session did help India as Prasidh Krishna (2/69 in 11 overs) after a disappointing morning session spell came back strongly getting Crawley with an outswinger that was fished to KL Rahul in the slips and then first innings centurion Ollie Pope (8) got a sharp incoming delivery that breached his defence.

Once he changed to a fuller length from his natural back of length strategy, he got the wickets but by then it was a bit late.

Despite the twin blows, Duckett continued his offensive batting style to keep England's nose ahead before the start of the post-tea session.

For India, Bumrah bowled a probing first spell but there was no support from the other end. Mohammed Siraj (0/45 in 13 overs), and Shardul Thakur (2/28 in 6.3 overs) bowled enough boundary balls to let England off the hook.

Duckett's game is based on simple hand-eye coordination as there was hardly any footwork.

The 30-year-old mostly remained rooted to his crease and tried playing forward or square of the wicket depending upon the length. He played late and that gave him time to punish Bumrah as well during the subsequent spells.

Duckett was dropped by Yashasvi Jaiswal off Siraj much to the frustration of the bowler.

When Jadeja bowled, Duckett would reverse sweep him for good measure as there was not much help off the surface. If one reverse sweep was hit behind the square and went for boundary, the other one was even more audacious and over extra cover for a six.

Not playing a spinner of Kuldeep Yadav's calibre came back to haunt India.

If India would have expected that the quick wickets would push Duckett on the defensive, they were mistaken as he continued to cut, pull and sweep with utter disdain.

However it was Shardul, India's forever lucky charm, who bowled two poor deliveries back-to-back but to everyone's surprise was able to remove Duckett and Harry Brook (0) to keep visitors interested.

While Duckett uppishly drove a half volley to Nitish Reddy in the cover region, Brook clipped a delivery on fifth leg-stump as Rishabh Pant took a smart catch down the leg side.

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