By the end of the third day's play, England had scored 53 runs in the second innings, after losing 3 wickets. India were all out after scoring a good total of 286 runs in the second innings and took India’s lead to 482 runs. Ravichandran Ashwin’s century was the catalyst for taking India’s score to 286. He scored 76 runs with the number 10 and 11 batsmen. A VVS Laxman kind of an innings, one must say. The Day began slowly for India. They lost five early wickets and the score was merely 106-6. Kohli and Ashwin batted together till the score of 202 when Kohli got out. Onus was now on Ashwin to do the maximum scoring for India.
The tail-enders Ishant and Siraj also played an important part in the innings. They supported Ashwin in his century and piled on 76 runs for the final two wickets. England then came on to bat on a dry and dusty pitch which was whimsically helping the spinners. Some balls were turning, some were bouncing. It was a marathon for the Indian spinners in the final hour of Day 3.