While chasing a humongous target of 521 runs, England posted 23 runs on the board without any loss by the end of third day’s play at Trent Bridge, Nottingham. Alastair Cook remained unbeaten on 9 and was accompanied by Keaton Jennings who was playing on 13.
England need 498 to win while India are 10 wickets away from their first victory in the series.
Team Indian declared their second innings after putting 352 runs on the board at a loss of 7 wickets.
Earlier in the third session, Indian skipper Virat Kohli slammed the 23rd century of his Test career which also turned out to be his second hundred in this series. Kohli took 192 balls to get 3 figures against his name.
However, in the 94th over, Kohli lost his wicket to Adil Rashid and ended up scoring 103 runs off 197 deliveries. He slammed 10 boundaries during his stint at the crease.
After Kohli’s dismissal, India went on to lose 3 more wickets of Rishabh Pant (1), Ajinkya Rahane (29) and Mohammed Shami (3) before declaring their innings after 110 overs.
After grabbing his maiden 5-wicket haul on the third day, Hardik Pandya performed phenomenally with the bat and scored his 4th Test fifty. He remained unbeaten on 52.
About the second session:
India superbly anchored their innings in the second session as Pujara and Kohli added 113 runs for the third wicket. It was the second 100+ partnership stitched by the Indian batsmen in this match.
After remaining wicketless in the first session, England managed to pick just one scalp in the second, that too, after toiling really hard. In the 72nd over, Ben Stokes got rid of Pujara who scored 62 off 205 deliveries.
Captain Kohli continued his brave batting and is about to score his 23rd Test hundred. Meanwhile, he has become the Indian captain to score most runs in Test Series on the English soil. With 4 50+ scores in this series, Kohli has got 470 runs under his belt which also makes him the highest run-getter of 2018 in Test cricket.
The terrific first session
After resuming the game at 124/2, the duo has stitched a massive partnership of 83 runs for the third wicket so far. Pujara smashed his 15th Half century which came after 16 innings. He reached to the 50-run mark after facing 157 deliveries.
On the other hand, captain Kohli got 50+ plus score against his name for the fourth time in this series. With the 19th fifty of his Test career, the Indian skipper became the highest run-getter of 2018 in Test cricket.
It has been a record for India that they have never lost a Test match in England after putting 300+ runs on board batting first. If India wins this match, it will be their 2nd victory at this venue.
Kohli and his men dominated the second day’s play, pushing the English batting line-up to backfoot. With Hardik Pandya’s maiden five-wicket haul, the visitors took just one session (29.2 overs) to bowl out the Englishmen for just 161 runs.
Wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant entered the record books on his debut Test itself. He grabbed 5 catches in his maiden Test innings. The feat of taking five catches on debut in an entire Test match belongs to three other Indians - Naren Tamhane (vs Pakistan in 1955), Kiran More (vs England in 1986) and Naman Ojha (vs Sri Lanka in 2015) - Pant is sure to surpass them in second innings.
The Indian batsmen, especially captain Kohli and his deputy Ajinkya Rahane, remained the talking points of this game as well. Though both the batters missed their centuries, their patient batting and partnership of 159 runs helped India piling up 392 runs before losing all the 10 wickets in the first innings.