Champions England [Images] lived up to their billing as World Cup favourites when David Howell and Luke Donald hit the magical 59 mark at the Victoria course in Vilamoura, Portugal on Thursday to lead by a stroke.

They missed out on the World Cup record by two strokes but led four-time winners Australia and surprise package Arjun Atwal and Jyoti Randhawa of India by a shot on 13-under-par.

Sweden and Wales are a further stroke back, with Spain, last year's runners-up, three off the lead.

The US trail England by six strokes while strongly-fancied Ireland lag eight shots behind.

For World Cup debutant Howell, who beat world number one Tiger Woods [Images] last week to claim the Champions title in Shanghai, it was the continuation of a rich vein of form.

Elevated to world number 13 after his three-shot win in China, Howell sparkled from the start in Portugal, making an eagle with a stunning five-wood shot to only four feet, and picking up five strokes in the first six holes.

Donald, who won the title with Paul Casey last year, had already contributed one birdie but took over in earnest as England went to 10-under after 10.

He ensured they had the edge by holing an eight-footer on the last to save par after five birdies from the seventh with Howell having added another two.

"Everyone wants the magic 59," said Donald, "so it was a very big putt to make. The way we were playing earlier, we had so much momentum we were thinking we could birdie every hole."

Howell added: "The way we played in practice I thought 59 was gettable and conditions were perfect.

STRONG START

"I had a general feeling that things couldn't go better after last week then, starting off as strong as I did, you know it's not going to get much better than that and it was enjoyable while it lasted."

With both players hitting the ball aggressively it was inevitable they would come unstuck once or twice but despite both men visiting water, they kept bogeys off their cards and will go into Friday's foursomes with confidence.

"We haven't decided who is going to play off first yet, maybe tonight over dinner," said Howell.

For Australia, Hensby, this year's Scandinavian Masters winner, picked up seven birdies and Lonard five.

Atwal and Randhawa, who have never been in the World Cup, played foursomes or even teamed up together before, relished their moment in the sun.

"This will be big news back home," Atwal said. "We love team games, but it is normally through cricket. This will be huge for the game."

With only 120 golf professionals, mostly club pros playing on local circuits, India has only once made golfing headlines when they beat Scotland and Colin Montgomerie in 1996 to provide the shock result in the Dunhill Cup at St Andrews.

Gaurav Ghei defeated Montgomerie, and Jeev Milkha Singh [Images] beat Andrew Coltart, to put out Scotland nine years ago.

"We can both remember that happening," said Randhawa. "It was the biggest news we'd had in golf until Arjun won on the European Tour and I won in Japan [Images] and it got huge media coverage at the time. They'll get pretty excited about this, too."

Atwal has won twice on the European Tour, the 2002 Malaysian Open and 2003 Singapore Masters, and this year lost a playoff in the Bellsouth Classic to Phil Mickelson on the US PGA Tour.

Randhawa has won in Japan and qualified for next year's European Tour.

"No one expects our team to do well or win," he said. "India has been in the World Cup before and not really done much.

"I don't think people know that we have a decent team."

Photograph: REUTERS/Nacho Doce