A spectacular century from Ian Bell and fifties of Kevin Pietersen, Eoin Morgan and Matt Prior put England in commanding position against India as they gained the lead of 374 runs on the contentious third day of second Test match at Trent Bridge.
Bell notched up his 15th ton to build the groundwork for England’s substantial second innings total of 441 for six on a day, which was marred by a controversial decision against the batsman in the final over before tea.
The incident added excitement to the fixture which is already turning towards a thrilling conclusion.

Bell was playing on 137 when his crease-mate Morgan flicked the ball off Ishant Sharma to deep square leg where Praveen Kumar attempted to save the ball and flung the ball back to keeper Dhoni.

Meanwhile, Bell touched his bat down within the crease for three runs. Deeming the ball had gone for a boundary, he jogged toward Morgan at the non-striker’s end, fully expecting the interval.

But after Bell got a forewarning from Morgan, Dhoni threw the ball to Abhinav Mukund, who plunked the stumps at the strikers end.

On that time the umpire hadn’t indicated a boundary or called it tea. After a long conversation between umpires Asad Rauf, Marais Erasmus and the third umpire, enraged Bell was sacked on 137.

The English crowd was left flabbergasted as Bell was course-plotting the hosts to a well-established position.

India VS England 2nd Test: Spectators hailed tourists with taunts

The extremely dissatisfied spectators hailed the tourists with taunts when they returned to field for the final session.

During the break, English skipper Andrew Strauss and Coach Andy Flower went to Indian dressing room and requested MS Dhoni to reconsider their appeal.

Dhoni then withdrew the appeal and Bell reappeared after tea to recommence his proceedings with Morgan. When crowd see saw Bell back on the crease they started consoling the visitors.

After two days in which batting had proved hard, the batsmen’s task at appeared to ease on Sunday, with the grass gone from the wicket and the swing a slight gentler on a sunny morning.

England recommenced their innings at 24-1, still 43 in arrears in this wildly unpredictable Test.

Out-of-form Strauss once again failed to impress the fans with bat and walked back to dressing room after edging to Dhoni off Sreesanth for 16.

The tourists failed to exploit on the early scalp, and against some increasingly bowling, Bell added a decisive 162 for the third wicket stand with Pietersen to transfer the thrust to England’s way.

The partnership endangered to take the challenge away from a enervated India, but came to an abrupt end when Sreesanth found the outside edge of his bat with Pieterson well-set on 63.

Pieterson’s departure brought Morgan in, who proved a vital partner of Bell and shared 104 runs with him to put England back in a dense position again.

India VS England 2nd Test: Bell reached his 150 fifty from 196 balls

Bell reached his 150 from 196 deliveries plagued with 23 boundaries after he added 9 more runs to total Yuvraj Singh edged him to VVS Laxman at slip cordon.

The dazzling show of Morgan concluding on 70. When he edged to keeper off Praveen His knock was comprised of eight boundaries and a monster six.

In the subsequent over Jonathan Trott, who is not fully recovered from the shoulder injury, stunned by Praveen for 2.

The fall of two back-to-back wickets, increased the stress on Englishmen but Prior and Tim Bresnon recuperated the side with unbeaten partnership of 102.

At the stumps, Prior and Bresnon were playing on 64 and 47 runs respectively.

England is leading the four-match series by 1-0 after winning the first Test at Lords by a massive margin of 196 runs. Strauss-XI can snatch the top spot from India in ICC World Rankings if they won the four-match series by 2-0 or more.

India VS England 2nd Test Scorecard