KOLKATA — A listless India succumbed to their second successive humiliating defeat on home soil as England overcame a few hiccups to clinch the third cricket Test with an emphatic seven-wicket victory and take an unassailable 2-1 lead in the four match series here Sunday. Needing 41 runs to win the match after dismissing India for 247 in the second innings, the visitors lost three quick wickets to add a tinge of excitement to an otherwise lop-sided contest before cruising home with more than two sessions to spare. Captain Alastair Cook (1), Jonathan Trott (3) and Kevin Pietersen (0) were out cheaply but Ian Bell (28 not out) held his nerve to take the team to the victory target at the Eden Gardens. Bell took a single off R. Ashwin to bring about England's moment of triumph, triggering of scenes of celebrations in the dressing room as the players hugged each other and took a round of the stadium. With another resounding victory, England kept themselves on course for its first series win on Indian soil in 28 years since David Gower-led team won a series 2-1 in the 1984-85 series. Though the Indian bowlers took three wickets in the second innings, they looked completely ineffective in the first innings unlike the English bowlers who exploited the conditions far better. After the humiliating 10-wicket defeat in Mumbai, the hosts once again seemed clueless in their own den with neither batting nor bowling clicking. The two teams will now travel to Nagpur for the fourth and final Test beginning Dec. 13. England just needs a draw to record a historic series triumph while India has no option but to win to level the series and save the blushes of a seires defeat in its own den. Ashwin shone with the bat with a gritty 91 not out in India's second innings before the off-spinner dented England's 41-run chase, knocking off the wickets of Cook and Pietersen. But before it went from bad to worse, Ian Bell (28) and Nick Compton (nine) steered the team to a seven-wicket victory to hand India back to back Test defeats at its own backyard, for the first time in 12 years. Zaheer, Yuvraj dropped Stung by two successive defeats on home soil, the national selectors Sunday cracked the whip by axing veteran pace spearhead Zaheer Khan and batsman Yuvraj Singh from the squad for the fourth and final Test. Off-spinner Harbhajan Singh, who did not play the last match, also found himself in casualty list as the selectors opted for a leg-spinner in Piyush Chawla and infused young blood by picking Delhi paceman Parvinder Awana and Saurashtra all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja. The selectors also announced the team for the two Twenty20 matches to be held in Pune (Dec. 20) and Mumbai (Dec. 22) in which Uttar Pradesh all-rounder Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Awana were the two new faces. Twenty20 squad: MS Dhoni (c), Gautam Gambhir, Ajinkya Rahane, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Manoj Tiwary, R. Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Piyush Chawla, Ashok Dinda, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Laxmipathy Balaji, Parvinder Awana. — Agencies
