England always knew their best chance of bowling out India twice in a Test would be to transport the British weather halfway across the world but its very arrival stymied their progress.

The gloomy cloud cover added a different dimension to the tourists' attack, other than delivering negatively outside leg-stump, only for it to change to rain and rebuff England hopes of finishing the Indian first innings before the end of the third day of the final Test.

Only 43 overs were possible as a result as England otherwise made excellent progress in reducing India to 218 for seven.

Yorkshire pace bowler Matthew Hoggard, used to exploiting similar movement at his home ground of Headingley, finished with three wickets and Ashley Giles finally ground down Sachin Tendulkar in between.

Just 10 runs away from a 28th Test hundred the Indian maestro lost patience with the leg-side policy and charged down the wicket.

He failed to connect and James Foster, England's young wicketkeeper, completed the dismissal, the first time in 143 Test innings that Tendulkar has been stumped.

It did little for the match as a spectacle but Hoggard defended Nasser Hussain's restrictive ploy.

He said: ''It's a different ball game bowling to Sachin, he's a class above everyone else and he's the best I have ever bowled at.

''He just treats it like a net and all we can do is try and stop him from scoring runs, and in the end it frustrates him and we get him out.

''We have a crack at him at the start but once he's set it's very hard to dislodge him so we just try and keep him quiet.'' Once Tendulkar had departed, the leaden sky over the Chinnaswamy Stadium opened again to prevent England dismissing India and earning a valuable first-innings lead.

''When you come to India you don't expect it to be bad light and raining. To lose so much time when you are in the box seat is very frustrating,'' said Hoggard.

''But we have got two days to put it in and if we can get three quick wickets tomorrow, who knows, we have seen India crumble before.'' Three previous lengthy rain stoppages - one at the re-scheduled early start and another two in the post-lunch session - interrupted a purposeful assault led by Hoggard.

He struck twice in quick succession before lunch Rahul Dravid and Saurav Ganguly falling in consecutive overs and added Virender Sehwag, fortunate to survive two edges into the slips, to his tally before tea.

In the fourth over with the new ball, Sehwag, who had made a swift 66, touched a catch to Foster.

In his first over of the morning he enticed a thin edge from Dravid who continued his wretchedly dogged trot.

Despite his undoubted talent, he has struggled in this series and his 61-ball three was an extension of the theme that has delivered just 122 runs in 10 hours and 21 minutes at the crease, including more than five hours for his last 36.

Left-hander Ganguly followed for nought, guiding a delivery angled across him to Mark Butcher, who held a neat catch at second slip.

Hoggard's impressive display - he beat the outside edge more than a dozen times - may have delivered earlier reward but Andrew Flintoff failed to hold a low, sharp chance from Sehwag at third slip and another edge from the batsman dropped short of Butcher on its way to the third-man boundary.

''It's only taken us two Test matches and 60 overs to find some swing out here,'' joked Hoggard.

On another day Hoggard, who sings at the end of his run-up when things are going well, would have taken a five-wicket haul.

Yesterday he was left chuntering and swearing at himself as Sehwag, in particular, rode his luck.

Tendulkar aside, Sehwag was the one Indian batsman to show enterprise.

His answer to Giles landing in the rough was to use his feet to hoist to the midwicket boundary and when Hussain blocked that avenue he audaciously reverse-swept a four to backward point.

As soon as the inclement early -morning weather subsided sufficiently for proceedings to get under way, England continued bowling outside leg-stump from around the wicket in an attempt to restrict Tendulkar.

A vociferous crowd voiced their displeasure at the continuation of yesterday's controversial tactic and umpire AV Jayaprakash also had words with Hussain and bowler Flintoff.

Tendulkar, resuming the morning on 50 not out, broke the shackles twice in the opening overs with handsome boundaries, pulling Giles when he dropped short then helping Flintoff off his pads to the square-leg fence.

Then came the biggest surprise of all when, after nearly four-and-a-half hours of fruitless, tedious toil, Tendulkar proved he really can err like the rest and provided England with a flimsy legitimacy of their stifling tactics