England victory bid held up

England fought gamely to beat the bad weather to defeat India in the first Test - and were a wicket away from victory when the scheduled rain blew in at Lord's.

With showers threatening throughout the final day in London, Michael Vaughan's men had the Indians 282 for nine when bad light drove the players from the field.

Visibility was so bad, in fact, that umpires Simon Taufel and Steve Bucknor deemed fast bowlers could not operate with India eight wickets down.

Off-spinner Vaughan therefore bowled in tandem with Monty Panesar and the latter made a crucial breakthrough when he struck in his first over from the nursery end.

Rudra Pratap Singh lost his head to the final ball and was bowled looking to force onto the leg-side.

The drama increased as number 11 Shantha Sreesanth and Mahendra Dhoni formed an alliance for half a dozen overs.

Dhoni attempted to manipulate the strike to spare his partner too many deliveries from the dangerous Panesar and his unbeaten 76 was full of entertaining smites to the boundary.

Moments after the players left for an early tea, the rain began to fall and England were left to play a waiting game in their bid to go 1-0 up in the series.