Cricket/ First Test: If the weather does not interfere - and some light drizzly stuff is forecast - then England may yet force a win in the first Test. Impelled by a brilliant, buccaneering century from Kevin Pietersen, his seventh in Tests and second at Lord's, they will go into the final day with a lead of 393.

There are 98 overs remaining with all 10 West Indian second-innings wickets intact.

In terms of runs, England have more than enough to survive against a Lara-less side, and sufficient to keep pressure up around the bat, in particular for Monty Panesar, who, having taken six for 129 in the first innings, can be expected to earn his crust from the Nursery end.

Pietersen was superb, cautious and accumulative until tea and then breaking out with a blaze of boundaries to reach 109 off 138 balls, before he was lbw to Chris Gayle attempting a reverse slog into the grandstand. His second 50 came from 39 balls, and was greeted with his most understated celebrations yet: this most extrovert of cricketers will be accused of indifference soon.

But he had support too, first from Alastair Cook, who added 65 in a third-wicket stand of 88 after the cheap demise of both Andrew Strauss and the unfortunate Owais Shah, and then Paul Collingwood, who contributed 34 runs to a fourth-wicket stand of 102 in 98 balls.

Later Matthew Prior, in the short while he was at the crease, tucked in with such relish from the off, hitting successive sixes off Dwayne Bravo, that Peter Moores must surely revisit the idea, jettisoned by his predecessor, that he could open the batting in the one-day side.

So rapidly did England score, with 179 runs coming in two hours and 40 minutes of the final session, that Strauss felt able to declare for the second time in the match, leaving West Indies 437 all out in the first innings, 10 minutes batting before the close, a tricky proposition which no opening batsman would relish.

But Steve Harmison, switching to the Nursery end which, in theory, with the slope downhill from right to left, ought to help maintain the integrity of his action, began with two wides to the left-handed Gayle that kept the ring of four slips on their guard and failed to threaten his wicket thereafter, although five-and-a half ounces of leather propelled at 90 miles per hour straight into the groin will have condemned the batsman to a quieter evening than he may have wished.

With Matthew Hoggard's torn adductor muscle on the inside of his right thigh keeping him from this match and from the next as well in all probability, a much higher standard of pace bowling will be demanded than has hitherto come from Harmison and Plunkett.

Never has an England attack delivered as many wides in a match as this - 16 in the first innings and another from Plunkett to go with those from Harmison in the second - and yet again the new ball is in danger of being wasted.

What is it about Harmison? Mentally he must be in strife, the proliferation of wides becoming a cricketer's equivalent of the golfer's yips, a bowling affliction that in the past has seemed peculiar to left arm spinners.

It is to be hoped then that this does not penetrate as far as Panesar, who, given an earlier opportunity than he would have had had Hoggard not have pulled up lame on Saturday, has become the linchpin of the attack. Strauss would have thrown him the ball knowing that control of the situation was his bottom line, but, with the ball still nibbling from the pitch and swinging to a full length, believing the damage would come from the pacemen.

Instead his first ball bowled Devon Smith, after which, in the course of 36 more overs precisely, the Pakistan umpire Asad Rauf awarded him five lbw decisions, an unprecedented number for a spinner in a Test innings.

Two of those - Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Cory Collymore - came yesterday, lending further credence to the notion that ICC elite umpires, in discussions and using demonstrative aids such as Hawkeye to back it up, have agreed that where once batsmen would be given the benefit of the doubt when pushing forwards, they now do so at risk of their wicket. In future, we may see fewer instances of the bat tucked away behind the pad; the best players of spin - Pietersen yesterday as an example - have always regarded the bat itself as the primary weapon.

• Guardian Service