CRICKET:India took a little more than 90 minutes to score the 63 remaining runs necessary to win what had been an absorbing if fractious and at times puerile Test match.

Intent on reaching victory with as few losses as possible, to reinforce a superiority to carry into the final Test starting at The Oval a week tomorrow, they stumbled on the way, losing both openers and Sachin Tendulkar. Each fell to Chris Tremlett during an impressive, 27-ball burst at a cost of three runs, before Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly saw India home.

This was only India's fifth Test victory in England, following those at The Oval in 1971, captained by Ajit Wadekar (and characterised, as was this, by a controversial barging incident); at Lord's and Headingley in 1986 with Kapil Dev at the helm; and Leeds once more in 2002, with Ganguly in charge.

So there was real cause for celebration, not least because this triumph, coming so soon after the escape at Lord's, means they cannot now lose the series and may very possibly win it.

The winning runs came as Tremlett speared in a yorker to Ganguly which evaded stumps and wicketkeeper, leaving Matthew Prior sprawling open-mouthed but, mercifully, for once with nothing audible emerging from it.

But it was no carefree gallop to the line. Indeed, another 80 runs for England - more than a possibility when, on the fourth day, Michael Vaughan and Paul Collingwood were together before Zaheer Khan got his hands on the second new ball - and this might have been a contest to the wire.

The England bowlers came hard at India. James Anderson bowled with genuine pace and venom, Ryan Sidebottom was no less impressive than he had been throughout the match, though no more successful, and Tremlett, a towering specimen, found some invigorating lift which undid both Dinesh Karthik and Tendulkar, the latter caught off his hip in an old-fashioned position around the corner posted by Vaughan for just that eventuality.

Peter Moores now has the task of assessing whether a team who in the space of a week have gone from within a whisker of winning a Test to being comprehensively beaten in the next should be tinkered with. England were outplayed but not by as large a margin as the result suggests. The toss, won by India, played its part, although the ball moved alarmingly at times throughout the match.

However, the capacity of India to knuckle down in the first innings exceeded that of their opponents, with the first-wicket stand of 147 compiled by Karthik and Wasim Jaffer proving crucial. The Indian batsmen, carrying a reputation of not having the technique to cope with the moving ball, actually gave an object lesson in playing late.

If the Indian batsmen appeared fortunate to survive at times, then it is worth noting that there is an art in playing and missing. They battled and did so hard, with Tendulkar's first-innings duel with Sidebottom, survived by the batsman but drawing mutual respect, a highlight of the summer's watching.

Indeed, if Zaheer was the outstanding bowler and a worthy man of the match, then Sidebottom was not far adrift. The return to fitness of Matthew Hoggard notwithstanding, it is hard to see why any of the three England seamers should make way for him.

But there is a concern about Matthew the Lip, whose mindless wittering from behind the stumps cannot camouflage the fact the search for a top-flight wicketkeeper-batsman to replace Alec Stewart has to continue.