Having struggled to break the tourists' resistance in the previous Test at Old Trafford, England reintroduced Matthew Hoggard to their line-up after missing two Tests with a thigh strain as a replacement for the wayward Liam Plunkett.

His influence was immediate and he struck up a successful partnership with Ryan Sidebottom, his former Yorkshire team-mate, as West Indies slumped to 92 for four at tea having been put in to bat by England captain Michael Vaughan.

Hoggard's presence seemed to relax the attack and instead of the wayward displays which earmarked the previous two Tests, they immediately tested the tourists.

In conditions ideal for swing bowling, Sidebottom struck with the first delivery of the day, which had been delayed until 2pm by a wet outfield saturated by the constant rain over the previous three days.

West Indies captain Daren Ganga, who scored only five runs in two innings during the previous Test defeat at Old Trafford, could not even survive the first delivery this time and clipped off his legs straight into the chest of Alastair Cook at short leg.

Given that flying start, England quickly exploited their advantage and Chris Gayle and new batsman Devon Smith struggled to cope with the extravagant swing.

Gayle's method for overcoming their disadvantage was to play aggressively, driving down the ground for four and then clipping over midwicket for six during one over from Sidebottom.

His flamboyant strokeplay was always likely to give England a chance, however, and after forcing Hoggard off the back foot for another boundary, he attempted another extravagant drive two balls later and was given lbw to an inswinger.

It took Hoggard to 236 Test victims and into joint sixth on England's list of leading wicket-takers. It also exposed Gayle's flawed game-plan, which may have earned him 28 off only 24 balls, but it was not the type of innings to suit West Indies' situation.

That was underlined seven balls later with Smith becoming England's third victim of the day when he shouldered arms to Sidebottom only for the ball to clip his off-stump.

Runako Morton attempted to play more conservatively alongside experienced campaigner Shivnarine Chanderpaul and for a time West Indies halted the slide.

Chanderpaul, who was dropped on 18 in the previous Test before going on to score an unbeaten century, was once again given an early reprieve when he was dropped by Ian Bell at third slip after reaching just nine.

It was an error which looked like proving costly with Chanderpaul guiding Morton successfully through the next eight overs before his less experienced teammate chipped local hero Steve Harmison straight to Sidebottom at mid-off.

Chanderpaul, however, continued to become only the seventh West Indies' batsman to score 7,000 Test runs when he progressed to 24, reaching the milestone with a leg-glance off Harmison for four.

By the interval Chanderpaul had moved ominously to an unbeaten 37, while allrounder Dwayne Bravo had resisted his natural impulse to attack and reached 14 after 59 minutes at the crease.