Three days of domination from England and India are battling to save a follow-on now. In response to England’s first-innings total of 578, India are in for some real trouble as they ended Day 3 of the first Test on 257-6 in Chennai, still trailing by 321 runs. Washington Sundar (33) and Ravichandran Ashwin remained unbeaten at Stumps, trying to pull India out of the soup.

While Team India lost some early wickets and at one point were at 73-4, Cheteshwar Pujara and Rishabh Pant once again came to the rescue work with a 119-run stand. While Pujara held on to his crease playing a patient 73 off 143 balls, Pant looked to be in an all-out attack mode, scoring a quickfire 91 off just 88 balls.

 

Pujara got out in the most unfortunate manner while trying to pull one off Dom Bess. Ollie Pope at short leg tried to duck it but the ball hit his helmet, and on the rebound, carried to Rory Burns at short mid-wicket.

 

Pant was in an exquisite form, not shying away from dancing down the track to dispatch the maximums. His innings was studded with 9 boundaries and five sixes. It was evident that the wicketkeeper-batsman was keen on taking on the bowlers to put the pressure back on England, but unfortunately it was during one of those assaults that he miscued his shot and succumbed to Bess, 9 runs short of his 100.

 

While Bess was in his prolific best, picking up 4 wickets for just 55 runs, Jofra Archer did majority of the damage early in the innings. He sent back Rohit Sharma off an outside edge for just 6 runs and then injured Shubman Gill’s right hand, which was followed by his dismissal.

Gill (29) was showing his class once again, playing a few elegant shots. But following the injury, it seems like he lost focus and ended up lofting an otherwise innocuous delivery to mid-on. James Anderson, stationed at the position, completed a great catch diving to his left.

 

Skipper Virat Kohli (11) and Ajinkya Rahane (1) could not last long at the crease either as Bess picked both of them, courtesy some brilliant efforts in the field from Pope and Joe Root. Root’s catch to dismiss Rahane is certainly one of the major talking points of the day.

Meanwhile, watch the highlights of Day 3 in the link below: