Lord’s Test: England crawl to 127/2 at tea courtesy Trott half century

In-form batsman Jonathan Trott survived a couple of chances to remain unbeaten on 58 while Kevin Pietersen,who looked pretty uncomfortable against the swing of Zaheer Khan and Praveen Kumar,scratched his way to 22.

The duo put on 65 runs for the undefeated third wicket stand. Trott has hit eight boundaries in his 104-ball knock.

There was some bad news for India as pace spearhead Zaheer,who was the pick of the bowlers,left midway through his 14th over after pulling a hamstring.

Zaheer,who had removed both openers Alastair Cook (12) and skipper Andrew Strauss (22),was in considerable pain when he left the field. It was Praveen who completed the over.

Although England batsmen never looked in any tearing hurry to score the runs,the Indian seamers lacked incisiveness despite getting considerable amount of movement.

After removing Cook with a delivery that came back to wrap him on pads,Zaheer again provided the breakthrough in the post-lunch session dismissing Strauss.

The England captain went for an atrocious pull-shot to a delivery that was well outside the off-stump only managing a top edge in the process. Ishant standing at fine leg held on to an easy catch. Strauss,who played 83 balls to hit two boundaries,has now been dismissed six times by Zaheer.

Trott,who reached his seventh Test half century in 107 balls,was dropped on eight and 32 with Rahul Dravid being the guilty party on both occasions. While Harbhajan Singh was the bowler during the first dropped chance,it was Zaheer who squared up Trott during the second time.