England's hopes of levelling the Test series in the Caribbean were landed a punishing blow by West Indian defiance at Queen's Park Oval.

West Indies made light of an injury to captain Chris Gayle to nullify England's victory bid, restricting their opponents to just three wickets on the third day.

Gayle experienced a bittersweet afternoon as he was forced to retire hurt with a hamstring strain, sustained as he was running the single to reach his 10th Test hundred.

West Indies were 195 for three at that point, still 152 runs adrift of avoiding the follow-on, but they were eased to 349 for four by the close thanks to an unbroken 145-run stand between Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Brendan Nash.

England were buoyed by two breakthroughs in the opening hour but it was a case of missed opportunities on another friendly batting surface.

Recalled left-arm spinner Monty Panesar was the pick of the five-man attack and might have had a handful of wickets on another day.

If fortune was against him, however, it appeared to be on the tourists' side when Gayle was forced from the field, after taking advantage of an Owais Shah misfield.

There was not a run on when left-hander Gayle turned the ball to the leg side but the fumble encouraged him to scamper through.

He suffered the discomfort as he stretched to make his ground, although had Shah's shy hit the stumps at the non-striker's end, instead of narrowly missing, England would have claimed a fourth success.

They did so when Lendl Simmons' error of judgment handed Panesar a second victim on his Test return.

Simmons, making his Test bow on his home ground, pressed forward and was struck on the pad in line with middle stump to increase England's hopes of gaining a sizeable advantage.

It came at around the same time that reports came from the home dressing room that Gayle would only bat if necessary and would head for an MRI scan tomorrow.

Earlier, debutant Amjad Khan claimed the prize scalp of Ramnaresh Sarwan as his maiden international wicket, lbw in his first over of the third day.

Umpire Daryl Harper's raising of the finger sparked jubilant England celebrations - captain Gayle dissuaded Sarwan from challenging the decision, it was so emphatically out - and great relief for Paul Collingwood.

The tourists appeared to have missed their chance when Collingwood floored a knee-high sitter offered to slip by Sarwan off Panesar, who produced a beauty which turned sharply to find the edge.

Both England men fell to their knees in disappointment but moments later the mood altered as a full delivery from Kent's Khan did the trick and increased English hopes of pulling off the win they require from this match to share the Wisden Trophy.

Sarwan, whose previous lowest score of the campaign was 94, departed for 14.

Another of the pacemen, Stuart Broad, ensured Sarwan was in early on the third morning when a short delivery rushed nightwatchman Daren Powell and ballooned off the splice to gully in the fourth over.

Batting landmarks were a feature of the opening overs as Gayle brought up his half-century, from 75 balls, with the first run of the morning, and Sarwan got off the mark with a cut for three off off-spinner Graeme Swann, which took him beyond 600 runs for the series.

With the onus on crease occupation in a bid to win their first series in five years, he progressed at a sedate pace but was flustered by Khan's use of the bouncer.

One such delivery clattered Gayle on the shoulder and was followed by a word or two from the bowler.

Khan and Panesar were the chief creators of discomfort, in fact, and both excitedly believed they had added to their wicket tallies.

Khan was down at fine leg celebrating when umpire Daryl Harper confirmed that Chanderpaul, on five, had struck ground and not ball with a drive at a wide one.

Panesar's hallmark jumping and clapping, which greets every appeal, was terminated twice in an action-packed spell before tea when first captain Andrew Strauss put down a chance at silly mid-off offered by Nash, on 19, and then umpire Russell Tiffin turned down what appeared a plumb leg before when the batsman had added five more.

To add to the frustration, England took their tally of extras to 61 for the innings, a statistic which impaired their chances of developing a healthy first-innings lead.

Just as in Antigua and Barbados, Strauss' team lacked penetration on an unforgiving surface and Nash reached his half-century in the third over with the new ball via an upper-cut over the slips off Khan, his ninth boundary.

At the other end, Chanderpaul once again highlighted the virtue of patience by reaching his painstaking fifty off 142 deliveries.

The hosts were given a helping hand past their follow-on target when wicketkeeper Matt Prior allowed another set of four byes through in the penultimate over of the day, thus equalling the England record of 30 in an innings.