SOME greater power, with a sense of humour at that, had his fun with Dickie Bird at Lord's yesterday. Bad light and drizzle first thing enough to spatter the windscreen but insufficient for the blades, an lbw decision in the very first over when play began half an hour late, an sepulchral gloom over the ground for much of the day that would have had his light meter twitching. It was enough to drive an umpire into the retirement home.

Until a battling unbroken sixth wicket stand between Graham Thorpe and Jack Russell gave England the edge on a fluctuating day, there had been gloom over the England innings as well. Asked to bat first - unsurprising in the sort of overhead conditions for which seam bowlers would sell their mothers - England lost Mike Atherton for nought to Javagal Srinath's fifth ball, and struggled their way through to lunch without further damage, only to suffer afternoon jitters with the middle order surrendering itself in the space of three overs.

At 107 for five, the Indian pace attack, unlucky at times during the morning, had justified Mohammad Azharuddin's decision (one taken not only as an attacking option but, with a weakened batting side, as a way of avoiding the English seamers in the hope of better weather to come). But Thorpe and Russell hit back, adding 131 and taking the score on to 238 for five before, with impeccable timing, play finally succumbed to the light just as the second new ball was taken.

It completed an emotional day for Bird. Before play began, players of both teams lined up in front of the pavilion so that the great eccentric, followed at a discreet distance by his Australian counterpart - Berk and Hair, someone remarked - could run the gauntlet.

Perhaps he whispered in his ear too. "Come on Dickie, just one lbw for old times sake. If so, the plea was answered, although the odds on it being so soon or so spectacular would have been astronomical. But the England captain was caught on the crease by Srinath's breakback and that was that. Bird must have surprised himself.

There followed an attritional but absorbing morning as the Indian bowlers probed, the ball ducked and darted, and Alec Stewart and Nasser Husein resisted. Hussain, centurion in the first Test, took three of an hour to get off the while Stewart, who might have been lbw when three, rode his luck outside off stump. But although lunch saw just 39 on the board, it seemed as if the storm, had been ridden, as Stewart set, the tone for the afternoon by driving the first ball to the boundary.

Unfortunately, as has happened with him in the past, the bard work was followed by an untimely lapse. The second wicket partnership was worth 67 when Stewart was surprised by a fuller, length ball from Srinath, drove flatfootedly and lost his off stump.

It was when Azharuddin departed from his front line attack and instead called up Ganguly, on his debut, that the breakthrough came. Ganguly bowls at enthusiastic skiddy medium pace that is not dangerous but requires respect. But Hussain, relaxing a little, thought he saw easy pickings, drove extravagantly outside off stump, edged and Rathore made a meal of a simple chance to second slip.

That wicket led to two more in quick succession. Graeme Hick, who likes to seize the initiative early, tried to smash a wide good length ball without assessing the pace or bounce of the pitch first and succeeded only in lobbing it to mid off. Then Ronnie Irani, batting at number six almost by default (he would not have done so at Edgbaston had four seamers been selected and presumably would not have done, so here had Crawley not been injured), shuffled over too far to his second ball and was bowled around his legs by Prasad.