The infuriated gestures from Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma from the Indian balcony to ask Rishabh Pant and Ishant Sharma to have a word with on-filed umpires over the issue of light all but slumped up the tourists’ position in the game.
Having started the game on such dominating note that experts and fans started arguing if the Indian team finally arrived on England tour, they are the side facing the strongest chance of defeat leading into the final day of the series.
They needed to put on another strong batting performance on the line of what the opposition captain Joe Root had done on the previous day. However, they were down and out and on the brink barely after reaching the fifty run mark.
As soon as Rohit Sharma departed pulling Mark Wood to Moeen Ali at deep square leg, the onus fell on the middle order to finally come to the party and bail the team out of trouble. They kind of did all the hard work but could not quite steer the visitors out of trouble by the end of the day’s play.
It was a perfect day of cricket for England as they kept the control of the game in their favour throughout the course of the day and found breakthroughs at regular intervals to keep India at bay. The early wickets of Rohit, KL Rahul and Virat Kohli gave them a real sense of opportunity, while Moeen Ali’s twin strikes late in the day tilted the momentum significantly in their favour.
Wood uproots India’s base
In absence of Stuart Broad, Ollie Robinson was preferred over Mark Wood with the new ball and the latter was brought into the attack only after the 20th over in the first innings.
However, the nature of the pitch had changed considerably from the first day to the fourth day and after having batted for a magnificent 180, Root was aware of its slowness. Robinson was again preferred with the new ball, but he amended his course by not delaying Wood this time around.
Root would have felt the urge to use the extra pace of Wood to extract more help from the surface and the move paid off almost immediately as Rahul could not quite hold himself from playing at a short of good length ball he should have left.
Rohit, a compulsive hooker of the short ball, was asked to hit some lusty shots. Remaining true to his nature and style, he obliged with a crisp shot that went flat over the square leg boundary.
Having seen Rohit taking on the short ball, Root sent positioned deep square leg at a finer position and the right-hander perished falling into the trap.
Wood was asked to attack Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane with a short ball from round the wicket angle. However, they did not lose their patience and Wood had to go back after finishing that spell.
He came back later towards the end of the day’s play when Rahane and Pujara were closing in on a 100-run partnership. The latter was confident to pull the pacer for four to bring up the partnership landmark but the jubilation was short-lived.
Wood produced a snotter that rarer off from the good length area, leaving Pujara with no answer other than to edging to third slip. Wood was rapid and on the money whenever Root needed him and his role as an enforcer of this England was well-ratified.
Rahane-Pujara’s hear the calls
Both Rahane and Pujara were under tremendous pressure coming into bat in the second innings after their failures in the first innings squandered the dominating start by the openers.
Both of them were guilty of searching the ball outside their off stump against Anderson and India could not reach the level they should have reached after Rahul’s century and Rohit’s 83.
Rahane joined Pujara after the fall of the gigantic wicket of Kohli when they were just 28 runs ahead of England with more than five sessions remaining in the game. They had to make a call on whether they wanted to take the game on or they wanted to soak up the pressure and bat with solidity and concentration on the surface that was not playing dangerous tricks.
In an unsurprising move, they decided to take time and needless to say they took a lot of time as Pujara took as many as 35 balls to get off the mark. Rahane too ate a fair share of balls to bring solidity to the Indian batting.
They batted out the remaining part of the morning session and carried on their merry way to bat the entire afternoon session at a run rate of fewer than two runs per over. The slowness of their partnership would have ignited debates about ‘intent’ and being too defensive, but lack of batting depth and a lot of time left in the game meant they had to dig in.
Moeen Ali’s love affair with India in England
Moeen Ali was the chief beneficiary of Pujara-Rahane’s defensive batting as he allowed Root with the control of the game from the other end. His first 10 overs yielded runs at two runs per over and lack of timing from both batsmen meant even his loose deliveries went unpunished.
The rewards of building pressure and bowling in a tight channel outside off stump paid dividends when Rahane, who was getting beaten repeatedly on the backfoot, edged one through to Jos Buttler. Moeen has had Rahane’s numbers in the past and the journey continued at lord’s today.
Moeen bettered his day by finding a perfect off-spinner’s delivery against Jadeja. He was getting good drift throughout the day and another such delivery found Jadeja playing for a ball that shaped to come into him in the air, before turning off the pitch, and opening him up and hitting the stumps.
The twin strikes just before the second new ball was due put England significantly ahead in the game and India would need remarkable batting from Pant and bowlers to get back in the game.
Looking ahead to the final day
India are ahead by 154 runs but have only Pant who can score runs and put England under pressure. They need the bowlers to shine bright with the bat and especially Ishant Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah need to defend well to give Pant some opportunity to attack England early on on the final day.
If they fail to perform that task, Mohammed Siraj and Mohammed Shami should be ready to swing their bats to maximise the number of runs they can add.
A lot of India’s fortunes will depend on the longevity of Pant’s stay at the crease and for England, it would be a battle for cat and mouse as they would be willing to hide the ball away from the right-hander and wipe off the tail.
The first four days have been topsy-turvy with no team clearly ahead in the game. However, by the end of the fourth day, England are favourites to take the game and 1-0 lead in their kitty.
Whatever it has in store for the fans of the game, it’s Rishabh Pant standing in between England and India on the final day of the Lord’s Test.