CRICKET TEST MATCH: WHEN THE dense fog finally lifted over the Punjab, it revealed the majestic sight of Kevin Pietersen in full flow. That Pietersen's England will lose an historic series in India looks inevitable, but his second hundred as England captain has given them a chance to finish the series with their respect intact.
England's glimmer of hope that they could pull off a win to level the series was extinguished in a disastrous conclusion to the third day, as Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff were dismissed in the last two overs, Flintoff to the last ball before bad light, leaving a deficit of 171 runs with only four first-innings wickets remaining.
Their enterprising fifth-wicket stand of 149 had to be carried into today to maintain England's hopes of victory. Instead, Pietersen's innings ended on 144 when he was leg before to Harbhajan Singh, and Flintoff, senselessly put back on strike by a recalcitrant nightwatchman James Anderson, was brilliantly caught, bat-pad, by Gautam Gambhir at short leg.
Pietersen's commanding strokeplay will be seen here as a prolonged Indian Premier League audition, especially on the day it was revealed that the England and Indian boards had held cagey discussions about bringing part of the 2009 IPL tournament to Britain.
But to England's captain it had a more pressing purpose: to stave off a second successive Test defeat in India and allow this politically-charged tour to finish in decent fashion.
Dusty statistical landmarks were not about to lessen his frustration. The list of the quickest England batsmen to 4,000 Test runs has remained unchanged for more than half a century: Herbert Sutcliffe, 43 Tests; Len Hutton, 44 Tests; Jack Hobbs, 45. To these revered old salts of the English game can now be added Pietersen, who like Hobbs reached the landmark in his 45th Test. Only he passed 4,000 surrounded by more than a thousand policemen and enough security fencing for several prison camps.
Only Pietersen, moreover, included a switch-hit in his repertoire. His outlandish signature shot, unveiled against Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan at Edgbaston and then repeated twice more against New Zealand's Scott Styris at Chester-le-Street, has now had an airing on the sub-continent. He was in the 80s when Harbhajan was switch-hit over backward square for six.
When England lost two wickets in their first seven balls - Andrew Strauss got too far across to Zaheer Khan to be lbw, and Ian Bell was comprehensively bowled as he wafted at Ishant Sharma's inswinger - it was possible to imagine that a disastrous collapse might befall them before the skies had completely cleared.
Pietersen took guard in a trice, a captain bursting to sort out the mess, but India's captain shrewdly taunted him by bringing on Yuvraj Singh's modest left-arm slows for the third over.
Yuvraj had already dismissed Pietersen twice in the series and, after removing him in Chennai, had made "bunny" gestures to a picture of Pietersen on the big screen.
India were bowling to Pietersen's ego. For the batsman, it was not as much an over as an escapade. He tried to slap the first ball to the boundary and hacked it a couple of feet. His only moment of certainty was when he left the fifth ball alone.
The sixth flew perilously close to VVS Laxman at short extra cover.
There was ample evidence that Yuvraj should have a second over, but in such climatic conditions it is a reckless captain who denies his new-ball bowlers their right. By the time Yuvraj returned for the 11th over, Pietersen and Alastair Cook had raised the 50 and the opportunity for mind games had been lost.
Cook's fluent half-century ended when he was lbw to Zaheer's inswinging yorker, and when Paul Collingwood touched Amit Mishra's leg break to the wicketkeeper, England were again under pressure, at 131 for four.
But Pietersen found an ally in Flintoff. While the all-rounder dismantled Mishra, Pietersen ran through his full repertoire of sweeps, from gulp-of-air slogs to delicate deflections.
It was a dapper little number, off Mishra, which brought him his 15th Test hundred just before tea. He slowed in the final session as Mishra bowled into the rough and Pietersen began to recognise the importance of surviving until the morrow. He failed in his ambitions and so, at once, did England.
• Guardian Service
India first innings453 all out (G Gambhir 179, R Dravid 136)
England first innings
A Strauss lbw b Zaheer 0
A Cook lbw b Zaheer 50
I Bell b Ishant 1
K Pietersen lbw b Harbhajan 144
P Collingwood c Dhoni b Mishra 11
A Flintoff c Gambhir b Mishra 62
J Anderson not out 1
Extras(b-1, lb-6, w-1, nb-5) 13
Total(six wickets, 73 overs) 282
Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-1, 3-104, 4-131, 5-280, 6-282.
Bowling: Zaheer 18-2-71-2, Ishant 12-0-55-1, Yuvraj 6-1-20-0, Harbhajan 15-2-56-1, Mishra 22-0-73-2.
