On Sunday at the PCA Stadium in Mohali, skipper Kevin Pietersen repeatedly threw his left leg across and outside off-stump, despite an open stance, to drag his side from the middle of a crisis to almost the brink of safety in the 310 minutes he spent at the crease. The beauty of his knock of 144 was the number of variations of the sweep shot he used — he brought out the patented switch-hit, cheekily paddled the ball around and on occasions swatted it with power to garner 17 boundaries and a six.

He and Andrew Flintoff dug England out of the hole, but both fell in the last two overs of the day as they finished at 282 for six and a match that looked destined to head for a draw has opened up for India.

Pietersen walked in to bat just seven balls into the day after a delayed start — England having lost two wickets for one run — to grab the buoyant Indian attack by the scruff of its neck.

The first test came against his nemesis Yuvraj Singh, Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni bringing on the left-arm spinner in just the third over of the day. He survived that move, even if a bit nervously, and immediately went into overdrive.

During the course of his knock, he became the third-fastest English player after Herbert Sutcliffe and Len Hutton to cross 4,000 Test runs, and joined Matthew Hayden, Brian Lara and Marcus Trescothick as the only batsmen to have scored more than 1,000 runs in three consecutive years. This was his 15th Test hundred, his third against India and second as skipper — throw a fractured rib into the mix, and Pietersen’s effort comes off as colossal.

Dream start

When play started, Zaheer Khan trapped Strauss leg-before with the third ball of the day and Ishant Sharma knocked down Ian Bell’s middle stump to put England firmly on the backfoot, but Alastair Cook and Pietersen stemmed the early rout against the new ball. Cook complemented his captain with a 56-ball half-century built on a reprieve by Sachin Tendulkar at slip. He then surprisingly got stuck for 11 balls without adding to his score before Zaheer yorked him.

Paul Collingwood lasted just three balls after Amit Mishra was introduced into the attack, edging a ball that drifted in and spun big to Dhoni behind the stumps. That brought Flintoff to the crease, and between slices of luck, he and Pietersen stamped their authority in an extended session between lunch and tea, using their big reach and brute power to good effect.

Pietersen smacked Harbhajan for a six over mid-wicket with his first switch-hit, and tried it several times against Mishra — surprisingly missing it twice before getting one to the boundary.

It didn’t help that the Indian spinners failed to hunt as a pair, while neither Zaheer or Ishant managed to get reverse swing going with the old ball. While Pietersen dished out the treatment to Zaheer, Ishant and Harbhajan in equal measure, Flintoff picked Mishra out for special attention, getting 36 of his 62 runs against the leg-spinner.

Mishra had the last laugh though, off the last ball of the day, when he had Flintoff brilliantly caught at short-leg by Gautam Gambhir to bring the Test match to bring India right back in the hunt.