Mark Butcher's wicket was a total bonus

Saurav Ganguly's heart must have been in his mouth when he elected to put England in to bat.

Had Srinath and Prasad been in his team, it would have been a straightforward decision and they would have made the ball nip around all over the place.

But he had not even met two of his three young seamers before they arrived in Mohali a couple of days ago, and none of them had ever played in a Test match: this really was taking a chance.

Although Yohannan removed Butcher with only the fourth ball of the match, it was not long before Ganguly was searching around the field for someone to restore some control.

Hussain was playing his most positive innings for some time and although Trescothick took time to get going, the pair quickly added 125 for the second wicket.

Even Kumble was proving expensive for a while, but then it all went horribly wrong.

Trescothick played no stroke and was bowled by Yohannan for 66, and Thorpe edged another newcomer, Siddiqui, to slip for 23 (India's close catching was outstanding, by the way).

Jamie Foster was all at sea in Mohali

And when Hussain prodded a bat/pad chance to silly point, England's position was already starting to slip at tea at 207 for 4.

We have all expressed our concerns about England's lower order, and knew in advance that it is inexperienced and liable to collapse, but we had no inkling of the drama that was about to unfold.

Up stepped Harbhajan and within seven overs, he had taken five wickets for six runs. He starts the second innings on a hat-trick.

What will concern Duncan Fletcher is that Harbhajan ran through Flintoff, Ramprakash, Foster, Dawson and Hoggard without actually turning a single delivery.

Goodness knows what will happen when he finds a pitch that is responsive.

Extra bounce

Instead, he tossed the ball up with a strong off side field and, thanks to his beautifully high action, unnerved the batsmen with extra bounce.

Some of the strokes that were played were ill-advised, to put it mildly, but that is what pressure does to batsmen who really appeared to have little idea how to play him.

The sight of Butcher trotting up to bowl only the eighth over will not have lifted England's spirits. He picked up a bonus wicket when Das departed as Trescothick had done earlier in the day.

But one could sense Dravid, Tendulkar, Ganguly and Laxman beating down the dressing room door in their desire to get out there.

Their chance will come, and England need to find some inspiration from somewhere if this match is not to rush away from them.