India widened the lead over hot pursuers England and Canada in the race for the second place in the Commonwealth Games on Friday through a four gold haul by shooters, archers and woman wrestler Alka Tomar.

The four gold medals meant India, just two gold medals ahead of England last night, boosted their overall tally to 18, even as Canada leapfrogged England to attain the third place with 13 yellow metals in hand, one more than England.

With Australia seemingly having taken an unassailable lead, the race for finishing No. 2 in the Games has narrowed down to a three-horse race between second-placed India, No.3 England and No. 4 Canada.

India’s tally stood at 18-13-11, Australia’s 41-22-19 while the tallies for Canada and England were 13-2-15 and 12-29-14 respectively.

India’s highest gold medal tally in the Games history, 30, was in Manchester in 2002 while four years later at Melbourne the country’s athletes scooped up 22.

Friday’s gold medals were won by world champion Gagan Narang, in men’s 50m rifle 3-position pairs event with Imran Hasan Khan, pistol shooter Vijay Kumar (25m rapid fire individual), women’s recurve team of Dola Banerjee, Bombayala Devi and Deepika Kumari and woman grappler Alka Tomar (59kg freestyle).

Three silver and two bronze medals too came India’s way, three of these from their best hunting ground, Dr Karni Range, on another fruitful day for the host nation.

Seasoned trap shooting pair Manavjit Singh Sandhu and Mansher Singh got a silver in pairs trap event, pistol expert Vijay Kumar stood second in the 25m Rapid Fire event, and grappler Babita Kumari won another silver in the women’s 51kg category.

Bronze standards were attained by rifle shooter Gurpreet Singh, in the 25m individual competition, and the men’s archery trio of Rahul Banerjee, Jayanta Talukdar and Tarundeep Rai in the recurve competition.

Rifle shooting ace Gagan Narang began India’s gold quest by snapping up his third gold medal, and second in pairs, by winning the men’s pairs 50m rifle 3-position event with Imran Hasan.

Narang, who had won the men’s 10m air rifle pairs and individual gold medals going into today’s competition, also set two Games records – a combined total of 2325 out of which his own contribution of 1167 was also a new championship mark.

The pair’s shooting gold was the country’s 16th after the trio of women archers fetched the country the first of the day.

The trio of women archers, forming the recurve team, defeated England 207-206 in a nail-biting final at the Yamuna Sport Complex to provide the country their first gold from the bow-and-arrow range.

The troika showed nerves of steel in crunch situations with double Olympian Dola and Deepika coming up with perfect 10s when the situation demanded.

The women prevailed over Malaysia 213-185 to set the tune this morning before edging out the English trio in the final.

Their men’s counterparts, however, disappointed by not living up to their top ranking and finished with only a bronze in the recurve team event.

Banerjee, Rai and Talukdar were stunned by their Australian rivals 216-211 in the semi finals but managed to edge out England 207-206 in a tension-packed bronze medal tie.

In tennis, the country’s best singles hopes – Somdev Devvarman, the men’s top seed, and women’s no. 2 ranked player Sania Mirza – entered the finals with semi final victories over Australian rivals.

Somdev demolished third seed Matthew Ebden 6-3 6-1 while Sania recovered after losing the opening set to oust sixth seed Olivia Rogowska 1-6 6-4 6-4.

The women’s hockey team kept their medal hopes alive by trouncing lowly Trinidad and Tobago 7-0 in a Pool A match, captain Surinder Kaur’s four-goal strike being the highlight.

In boxing, where a lot is expected from the country’s highly rated fighters, Asian silver-medallist Jai Bhagwan (60kg) booked a berth in the quarterfinals after defeating Tanzania’s Nasser Mafuru 11-2.

The 24-year-old pugilist from Haryana joined Amandeep Singh (49kg), Suranjoy Singh (52kg) and Manoj Kumar, who won their pre-quarterfinal bouts on Thursday, in the last eight stage.

Indian boxers are so far unbeaten in the competition.

Later in the day, Olympic bronze medallist and world number one Vijender Singh (75kg), Commonwealth Championship gold-medallist Paramjeet Samota (+91kg) and nine-time national champion Dilbag Singh will be in action in their respective pre-quarterfinal bouts.