India took control of the first Test against England on Friday, snaring three late wickets to be well on top after day two in Ahmedabad.
The host nation rode on an unbeaten 206 from Cheteshwar Pujara and valuable support from Yuvraj Singh (74) to reach 8-521 declared, and then struck crucial blows through spinners Ravichandran Ashwin (2-21) and Pragyan Ojha (1-3) to leave the visitors at 3-41, and with plenty to do to save the Test.
Alastair Cook remained unbeaten on 22 with Kevin Pietersen (six) for company with Nick Compton (nine), nightwatchman James Anderson (two) and Jonathan Trott (0) the men out.
India opened the innings with Ashwin and Zaheer Khan and both Cook and Compton did not have much trouble early on making 26 before the collapse started in the 14th over.
Compton fell to a classical off spinner's wicket as he lunged forward only to find himself beaten in flight and the ball turning in to squeeze between bat and pad and crash into the stumps.
Anderson lasted just six balls as he pushed forward with firm hands to an Ojha delivery and Gautam Gambhir took a good one-handed catch diving full length to his right.
Ashwin needed just two deliveries to remove the dangerous Trott, who was also guilty of playing hard at the ball with Pujara easily taking the bat-pad catch at short leg.
Skipper MS Dhoni brought on Yuvraj Singh against Pietersen but the right-hander did not have much trouble against the left-arm spinner this time and Cook safely negotiated the final over.
Earlier, resuming from their overnight score of 323-4, Pujara and Yuvraj batted out the first session without much trouble after having survived close lbw shouts early on.
Their 130-run partnership ended a few overs into the second session when, against the run of play, Yuvraj hit a Samit Patel (1-96) full toss straight to Graeme Swann at long-on.
Dhoni (five) also did not last long, gloving the ball onto the stumps while trying to sweep Swann (5-144) but Ashwin (23) hung on to pile on the misery adding 66 runs with Pujara.
Pujara completed his maiden Test double century in the final session before India declared after losing Ashwin and Zaheer Khan (seven) in quick succession to Pietersen (1-25) and Anderson (1-75) respectively.
First Posted 16 November, 2012 10:55PM AEST
