India’s hope of saving the third test match lied on how the Indian batsmen play on Day three. Consequently, a promising knock by Pujara along with valuable contributions from Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli has changed the momentum a bit and kept India alive.
Getting into details of today’s play, England was leading by 345 runs with two wickets to spare after stumps on day two. As day three commenced, India wasted no time as Shami and Bumrah cleaned the tail within 15 minutes. Therefore England finished their first innings with a big total of 432 runs.
Consequently, the Indian openers walked in to bat and faced an impressive spell of new bowl attack from Anderson and co. Consequently, KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma survived this initial onslaught from England bowlers. However, Craig Overton dismissed Rahul with a peach of a delivery on the last ball before lunch. Thus India was 34-1 after 19 overs.
Following the lunch break Pujara and Rohit entered the field and English bowlers were pretty confident to break the pair quickly owing to Cheteshwar’s bad form. However, the number three batsmen changed his approach in this innings and started very aggressively. Pujara punished all the bad deliveries and kept the scoreboard ticking. Rohit Sharma also started playing freely and the pair started adding runs rapidly.
As a result, Rohit reached the 50 mark and consequently, India crossed 100 runs. Although when things started looking bright for the away side, Rohit Sharma was trapped by Robinson on 59. Hence India had to rebuild a new partnership from scratch.
Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli’s Partnership help India reduce the First innings deficit
The onus was on Pujara who was the set batsmen on the crease to help India steer the ship towards safety after the wicket of Rohit Sharma. Hence Cheteshwar took it upon himself and lead the charge alongside Kohli. Both the batsmen didn’t offer any chance to the English bowlers and scored at a good run rate.
Quickly Pujara crossed Fifty and was heading towards the three-figure milestone. As this partnership was blooming, Root brought Mooen Ali to get a breakthrough. However, Kohli and Pujara played smartly by rotating strike of the spinners and did not take any unwanted risks.
Cheteshwar Pujara crossed 90 and Kohli was on the verge of getting his first half-century in this series. Although, the umpires decided to stop play due to bad light after 84 overs of play. As a result, India finished day two on 215-2 and trail England by 139 runs. Therefore the away side still have a lot to do on the fourth day to come back and secure a draw.
