Chasing 241 for a victory, the hosts were less dominating but were conscious of the Duckworth-Lewis requirement as they scored 198 for five in 40 overs before fading light necessitated an early end to the game.
India needed to score 183 for five in 40 overs under the D/L method and were declared the winners when bad light came into play.
For the hosts, Virender Sehwag topscored with 68, while Yuvraj Singh scored a brisk 38 off just 31 balls. Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni remained unbeaten on 29 to steer the team to victory in a more keenly contested tussle at the Green Park stadium.
After the early morning haze delayed the start and reduced the tie to a 49-overs-a-side affair, England captain Kevin Pietersen won the toss and had little hesitation in opting to bat first.
India now need to win the next match in Bangalore on Sunday to clinch the series by taking an unassailable 4-0 lead.
A rejigged batting order saw Ravi Bopara (60) walking out to open with Ian Bell (46) and the openers put on 79 runs before England lost the plot in the face of some disciplined bowling by the Indians and folded for 240 in 48.4 overs.
For India, Harbhajan Singh stood out, scalping three for 31, joining the 200 ODI wicket club in the process. For the home team's in-form and awe-inspiring batting order, the target of 241 should have been a stroll in the park. However small the target, they still needed to score those runs but a jittery start jolted them out of complacency.
A reckless Gautam Gambhir (14) and Suresh Raina (1) perished in quick succession and for India, reduced to 34 for two inside 10 overs, the chase for a modest target wasn't a cakewalk anymore.
Andrew Flintoff banged his fifth delivery short and Gambhir charged out only to guide it to third man where a grateful Broad pouched the catch.
Flintoff tormented Suresh Raina (1) as well but it was Broad who got the left-hander when the batsman, rooted in the crease, dragged a ball onto his stumps.
Sehwag read the situation well but did not allow it to bog him down. Boundaries still came thick and fast and Sehwag enjoyed the fortune of the brave as well when Samit
Patel almost caught him off his own bowling before the ball popped out of the left-arm spinners’ palm. Sehwag celebrated by clobbering Graeme Swann for a six to complete his fifty and raised 67 runs with Rohit Sharma (28) to lend some stability before trouble came in pair and both the batsmen returned in quick succession.
Rohit once again failed to convert the start and fell to Swann and then an airborne Paul Collingwood silenced the choc-a-bloc stadium by pulling off a stunner at point off Flintoff. Sehwag left unhappy with himself, having scored 68 off 75 balls with eight fours and a six in it.
England nemesis Yuvraj Singh walked amid thunderous applauds and joined by captain MS Dhoni and the duo had just steadied the ship before Flintoff again turned the game on its head by removing the left-hander.
In deteriorating light, Dhoni and Yusuf Pathan (12 not out) played smart cricket to keep the team ahead in the Duckworth-Lewis chart before bad light interrupted match.
Earlier, for the first time in the series, England got off to a strong, if not spectacular, start with the Bell-Bopara duo raising 79 runs for the first wicket inside 15 overs.
It was a marked improvement by the visitors, considering the fact that the opening stand had yielded 12 and six runs respectively, in the last two matches.
With Zaheer Khan and Munaf Patel maintaining a claustrophobic line, runs were not easy to come by, let alone boundaries. To their credit, Bopara and Bell did not panic.
The run rate was nothing to write home about but England crossed the 50-mark in 11 overs without any loss. Bell greeted the erratic Ishant Sharma with two boundaries in the first over, upsetting his rhythm by repeatedly stepping out of the crease
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