England made full use of the bowler-friendly pitch to maximum effect as Indian batsmen fell like skittles on Day 3 of the Chennai Test between India and England at Chepauk. For England, spinner Dominic Bess was the pick of the bowlers as he took four big wickets. R Ashwin and Washington Sundar have added 32 runs for the 7th wicket at the end of Day's play. At Stumps, India manged to reach 257/6 and trail by 321 runs.
Wicket-keeper batsman Rishabh Pant (91) and Test specialist Chetshwar Pujara (73), both scored fifties and notched up a solid 119-run partnership after visitors rattled India's top-order.
Chasing a mammoth total, team India made a poor start in their first innings of Chennai Test. The hosts' top-order collapsed as 4 wickets -- Rohit Sharma (6), Shubman Gill (29), Virat Kohli (11) and Ajinkya Rahane (1) -- fell for just 73 runs.
The onus of taking India forward in the chase was now on the pair of Pujara and Pant. India lost Pujara's wicket after he scored 73. The star batsman was dismissed by Dominic Bess. Fans were expecting a big innings from Pujara. The way he was playing, it seemed that he would do it but Bess got him caught out at the hands of Joe Burns.
India lost its sixth wicket in form of Rishabh Pant, who missed out on a hundred and was dismissed after scoring 91 runs. Pant's dismissal further deepened again after the crisis hovering over Team India.
Indian bowlers had to bowl continuously for the first two days against England in the Chennai Test. Even in the first session of Day 3, the bowlers of Team India kept on struggling for wickets but somehow managed to bundle up England for 578 after 190 overs in the first innings.
Joe Root scored the most 218 runs for England in the first innings. Apart from him, Dom Sibley scored 87 while Ben Stokes contributed with 82 runs.