Zaheer had figures of three wickets for 50 runs in sixteen overs while Shanthakumaran Sreesanth, RP Singh, Saurav Ganguly and Kumble picked up a wicket each to restrict England to 169-7 at the close of play on the day during which only 55 overs were possible due to overnight rain that had left the outfield and preventing play in the opening session.
When the stumps were drawn CT Tremlett was playing on 16 while left-arm paceman Ryan Sidebottom was yet to score.
It was a good toss for India to win, on a green-tinged pitch after the ground had been saturated by rain for several days.
India captain Rahul Dravid’s decision to field first was rewarded as early as the third over when Andrew Strauss drove loosely, without moving his feet, at Zaheer’s outswinger and was caught at first slip by Sachin Tendulkar.
That left England four for one after Strauss had got off the mark with an off-driven boundary against Zaheer.
Strauss’s fellow left-handed opener Cook later cover-drove fast bowler Sreesanth for four before unconvincingly edging Zaheer short of the slip cordon.
Zaheer, four balls after hitting Vaughan on the helmet and two after the batsman turned him off his legs for four, dismissed the England captain. Bowling from around the wicket, he lured Vaughan, on nine, into fending outside off-stump and Tendulkar again made no mistake with the slip catch with the 28-year-old Zaheer having taken his 150th wicket in his 49th Test.
Pietersen gave England fans something to cheer when he drove Singh down the ground for four. But Singh produced a fine delivery, swinging back into the right-hander and pitching on the line of the stumps to have Pietersen, who made a hundred in the second innings of the drawn first Test at Lord’s, lbw for 13.
England were in trouble at 47 for three in the 15th over and Cook and Collingwood were each lucky to survive several testing Zaheer deliveries.
After tea Collingwood was bowled by Sreesanth for 28 followed by Cook who was trapped lbw by Ganguly for 43, the highest score of the innings so far. Matt Prior was then caught by Dravid off Kumble for 11 to make it a sorry 147-6 for England. And then the important scalp of Bell (31) was claimed by Zaheer at the total of 157 with the batsman being lbw.
Scoreboard
ENGLAND 1st innings
A.J. Strauss c Tendulkar b Zaheer 4
A.N. Cook lbw b Ganguly 43
M.P. Vaughan c Tendulkar b Zaheer 9
K.P. Pietersen lbw b Singh 13
P.D. Collingwood b Sreesanth 28
I.R. Bell lbw b Khan 31
M.J. Prior c Dravid b Kumble 11
C.T. Tremlett not out 16
R.J. Sidebottom not out 0
EXTRAS: (B4, LB7, NB3) 14
TOTAL: (for seven wkts; 55 overs) 169
TO BAT: MS Panesar, JM Anderson.
FALL OF WKTS: 1-4, 2-24, 3-47, 4-101, 5-109, 6-147, 7-157.
BOWLING: Zaheer 16-4-50-3; Sreesanth 12-7-16-1; Singh 10-1-56-1 (nb2); Ganguly 8-4-11-1; Kumble 7-0-16-1 (nb1); Tendulkar 2-0-9-0.
INDIA:
W Jaffer, K.D. Karthik, R Dravid, S.R. Tendulkar, S.C. Ganguly, VVS Laxman, M.S. Dhoni, A Kumble, Z Khan, R.P. Singh, S Sreesanth.
UMPIRES: IL Howell (South Africa) and SJA Taufel (Australia).—Agencies