England opener Andrew Strauss smashed his second century in the match to push India further into a corner in the first Test at the Chidambaram stadium here on Sunday.
Paul Collingwood chipped in with 93 not out as the tourists moved from their overnight score of 172-3 to 244 without further loss by lunch on the fourth day, a lead of 319 runs with seven wickets in hand.
Left-handed Strauss, who made 123 in the first innings, was unbeaten on 102 to become only the second Englishman after Graham Gooch to score two centuries in a Test against India.
Gooch made 333 and 123 against Mohammad Azharuddin’s men at Lord’s in 1990, a match England won by 247 runs.
Strauss was the 10th English batsman to achieve the feat against any opposition, and the first since Marcus Trescothick did it against the West Indies in Edgbaston in 2004.
The 31-year-old Middlesex opener emulated West Indian Everton Weekes, Duleep Mendis of Sri Lanka and Gary Kirsten of South Africa, the current India coach, in scoring two hundreds in a Test on Indian
soil.
Strauss and Collingwood, who came together on Saturday evening with England struggling at 43-3, have so far hammered 201 for the unbroken fourth wicket.
A holiday crowd of 10 000 applauded warmly as Strauss turned Zaheer Khan to mid-wicket for a single to bring up his 14th Test century that was studded with seven fluently-hit boundaries.
Collingwood, who has hit nine fours, went into the break just seven runs away from his seventh Test century.
Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni has so far deployed six bowlers to contain the Englishmen on a wearing wicket that is still affording bounce to both pacemen and spinners.
England are expected to push the scoring rate in the afternoon session to set India a mammoth fourth innings target in the first match of the two-Test series. – AFP
