IND vs ENG | 1st Test Day 3 Report: India live another day on free-spirited Pant, disciplined Pujara

As it is always said, the third day of the ongoing Test match between India and England turned out to be a moving day, but the hosts fell off on the wrong side of the movement. Their batsmen, except Rishabh Pant, failed to rise to the occasion of challenging a monumental score of 578 by the England team, and played without convictions to leave the side in a disarray.

At the end of the third day’s play, India were six down for 257, trailing behind by 321 runs, and their first job on the fourth day will be to avoid the follow-on which is still 121 runs away with just four wickets in hands.

A fair share of blame will be levied on the top and early middle order as all batsmen were guilty of committing mistakes and handing over the wickets on some innocuous deliveries. 

It all started with the opening outburst from an express Jofra Archer and took away Rohit Sharma who perished as he felt for the ball and hanged his bat outside his off stump in a manner that is committed crime for a Test opener. Rohit had hit a boundary on the leg side as Archer erred on the length, but the pacer amended his line, while Rohit’s habit of searching for the ball early in his innings proved to be detrimental for him, and he will be kicking himself for missing out on the opportunity to stamp his authority on the game with the pitch offering little to no assistance to bowlers.

His partner at the top of the order, Gill started off from where he left in the highs of Brisbane, and his sublime timing was on display from the word go. He was on the money when James Anderson tried to test his front-foot play, while an examination of backfoot game was easily passed through by Gill who was riding high on confidence. 

In a very short career, Gill has never looked out of depth with the bat irrespective of the bowling attack he has come up against, but the lack of hundreds in his stat box will be something he would love to improve going forward in his career. He had all the settings required for a batsman to go big such as the game situation, his own form, and the lack of too much help for England bowlers, but in the end, he dismissed himself in a bizarre fashion, rather than getting undone by a piece of brilliance from the opposition. 

He was timing too well today, and ultimately his eagerness to score led to his downfall as he could not keep an on-drive off Archer along the ground, and Anderson took an age-defying catch diving forward to put the burden of the big score on the shoulders of Virat Kohli and Chesteshwar Pujara.

The events before the Lunch interval provided jitters to the host's dressing room but the experience of Kohli and Pujara must have calmed those nerves to finish the session only two down.

What transpired in the middle session truly justified the adjective of a ‘moving day’ attributed to the third day’s play of any Test match. Both Kohli and Pujara looked to settle down for a big one and Kohli in particular felt squeezed by the bowlers in Dominic Bess and Jack Leach as the first 10 overs after the Lunch interval yielded very few runs. 

Kohli appeared to break the shackles but through his own way of maneuvering the field by placing the balls into gaps instead of hitting out of the slump. He has a tendency of opening the face of his bat to find the gap on the off side against off-spinner, and the England skipper Joe Root showed signs of tactical brilliance by keeping the area between the point and cover region empty for him to target in search of single or even boundary as Bess was working well and getting good drift away from the right-handers.

Kohli, in general, plays off spinners from the back foot, until they force him to come forward, and Bess too had to undergo that test as the Indian skipper kept on negotiating the little or no turn from right back in the crease. Bess pulled the length back and adjusted the line of the attack outside the off stump, and Kohli, for a change, was done in all end up the off-spinner as he was defeated by the drift and played down the wrong line to lob a simple catch to Ollie Pope at the forward short-leg position.

The next man in, Ajinkya Rahane has not enjoyed his time against spinners, and the story could not be different today as his short stay at the crease eas cut short by a spark of brilliance from the England captain who is yet to set a foot wrong in this game. When Rahane came out to bat, he was not prepared for the turn, but Pujara alerted on some deliveries turning from the off stump line. 

On cue, Rahane was down the track to smother any form of spin against Bess. He looked proactive to not go back in shell against spinners, and jumped out of the crease to reach out to flighted delivery off Bess and succeeded in making that into a full toss and timing it towards cover, but he was guilty of hitting in the air and allowing Root to be a hero, and the kind of days the English skipper is having in the recent time, it was imperative he took a splendid one-handed catch to see off Rahane, and India’s chance of dictating terms to his side.

On the other hand, Pujara was batting with immense composure and intent, as loose deliveries were being severely punished. He has been a good scorer on home soil and does not get defensive in India, and it was evident today when he regularly stepped down to spinners, and forced them to shorten their length, and capitalized when they shortened it too much.

The next man in Rishabh Pant was fresh from a marvelous innings at the Gabba, and with Pujara at the other end and his side is in deep trouble, the setting looked quite similar to the one he faced in Australia last month. 

The pitch, however, was different, and so were the challenges, as Root called upon Leach to exploit the rough outside of the only left-handed batsmen in the top six of the Indian batting order. Pant was in no mood to allow Leach to dictate terms to him, and he started taking Leach part over his head. One-shot over the fence, followed another as he made the match situation look completely opposite to what it was.

The brilliance of Rishabh Pant is that he makes the game situation and the momentum irrelevant as he changes the course of the game in a matter of few balls. England could not show courage and sent the fielders back on the boundary lines but Root was equally pragmatic having earned the wisdom of understanding Pant over the years that positioning of fielders deep on the boundary will not stop Pant playing in his natural way. 

Root was right in his approach as some of those sixes went tantalisingly close from the fielder’s reach, but Pant was better than a slogger and he took a calculative risk. He was not attacking balls that were not pitched in his half or were pitched in the good part of the pitch, rather he kept attacking those which were targeted to land in the rough by Leach. There was a method to his game that others would call madness, and he never attacked the off-spinner Bess until the delivery that actually got him out.

There were signs that this was not to be India’s day as a well-set Pujara went back to the pavilion in one of the most uncommon ways. He forced Bess to bowl good length at him, but he himself was quick on his feet to rock back on the backfoot to pull over the square leg fielder for four, but he mistimed the shot, and it hit Ollie Pope on his body, and Rory Burns took simple ricochet to send a distraught Pujara back to the pavilion.

After Pujara’s departure, Pant was again seen in the zone he was in Brisbane as he was guiding Washington to play through as he would be taking care of the rest. But, Pant’s own downfall summed up the day for India which started going off the clip as he had missed an easy stumping chance off Ashwin and kept the debate about his wicketkeeping developing even in this Test.

India are left with only Ravichandran Ashwin and Washington to earn whatever they can before England can decide their course of action in pursuit of a win no could see coming especially the highs of the Indian cricket team in Australia just last month, but the Chennai Test once again showed it is a great leveller although it could happen possibly only due to the pitch at the Chepauk which levelled the potency of Indian bowling attack and allowing the tourists to get away, albeit with a superb batting display in the first innings.

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