By Sam Lyon

Strauss was at his compact best as he and Cook saw out the day

Alastair Cook and Andrew Strauss got through a tricky 20-over spell at the end of day four to frustrate India's bid for victory in the third Test.

The openers provided dogged resistance in bowler-friendly conditions to end the day 56-0 without alarm, having been set 500 as an unlikely victory target.

India opted to bat again after cleaning up England's innings for 345, but were pedestrian in the pace of the innings.

Only Sourav Ganguly (57) hit out as they limped to 180-6dec, a lead of 499.

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The tactics were baffling with India so far ahead, and were typified by skipper Rahul Dravid's 96-ball stay for just 12 runs - the slowest 12 in Test history.

606: DEBATE Your thoughts on day four at The Oval

However, with India 1-0 up in the series and targeting a first series victory in England for 21 years, Dravid could be forgiven for focusing on that rather than victory at The Oval.

England had started the day in defiant fashion, Monty Panesar (9) and Tremlett (25no) surviving for 26 minutes in the face of some excellent swing and seam bowling from RP Singh and a fabulous spell from Anil Kumble.

Kumble trapped Panesar plumb lbw, though, for his 564th Test wicket - outright third in the all-time list, overtaking Australian seamer Glenn McGrath - to end the innings and Dravid opted to bat again, presumably hoping to give his bowlers a rest for a couple of sessions before giving his team four sessions to bowl out the hosts.

Tendulkar trudges off for just one after being bowled by Anderson

However, the home pacemen were in top form from the first over and provided India with a few alarms.

James Anderson was in particularly good form, though he was a touch fortunate to be awarded his lbw decision against Jaffer, the ball looking to be going over the top.

Tremlett then took up the mantle, pitching one on off and seaming it enough to garner Karthik's edge, Paul Collingwood taking the catch at second slip.

And when Tendulkar was the next man out, the number four playing a ripper from Anderson onto his own stumps on what could be his last Test innings in England, India were reeling on 11-3.

However, with Ryan Sidebottom still nursing a problem with his side, Anderson and Tremlett were forced to bowl throughout before and just after lunch and Ganguly and Dravid put on 65 to lead the recovery.

Ganguly was in fine fettle, smashing nine fours in his 68-ball stay, but when he edged Paul Collingwood to slip, India went into their shell.

LEADING TEST WICKET-TAKERS 708: Shane Warne (Aus) 700: Muttiah Muralitharan (SL) 564: Anil Kumble (Ind) 563: Glenn McGrath (Aus) 519: Courtney Walsh (WI)

Dravid looked a man bereft of any attacking guile and it was to the relief of much of the crowd when he edged another Collingwood swinger to Andrew Strauss at slip.

VVS Laxman and Mahendra Dhoni were equally restrained in their innings, steadfastly refusing to open their shoulders for the vast majority of their innings, and Dhoni finally edged a slower-ball bumper from Tremlett behind to end a 20-over partnership of 69.

Kumble and Laxman batted on, with Dravid clearly targeting a lead of around 500, and it took until gone 1700 BST for him to declare - leaving England 20 overs to survive in the evening.