Indian bowlers will look to get wickets early in the day, especially of England captain Joe Root's wicket, to keep the hosts under pressure. At the end of third day's play, England were 22 runs ahead.
India
Vs England : On Day 3 of the first Test match, Virat Kohli and
company need to take early wickets to keep the momentum in their
favour which they had in the final session of Day 2. With the
scorecard reading 148/6 after the departure of Hardik Pandya during
the second session on Day 2, the situation looked extremely bleak for
the Indians.
The prospect of conceding a lead in excess of 100 looked
likely and the visitors desperately needed a miracle to even minimise
the damage that had been done. And the miracle came in the form of
Virat Kohli century who added 92 runs for last 2 wickets, scoring 90%
of the runs. To add salt to England miseries, Ashwin dismissed
Alastair Cook to end the day with England at 9-1, 22 runs ahead of
India.
What
England need to do on Day 3?
England
went to stumps on Day 2 at a score of 9/1, with Ravichandran Ashwin
rattling Alastair Cook's off-stump off the last delivery of the day.
The day, however, belongs to Virat
Kohli, who fought against the odds to bring up his maiden century
in England while almost single-handedly rescuing India from dire
straits to help his side post a respectable total.
With Cook
disappointing yet again in the dying minutes of the day, England will
have to count once again on Joe Root playing the anchor's role and
building partnerships around him. More importantly, the home team
will need their middle order to show more character in the second
innings after the collapse in the first if they are to post a score
in excess of 300, one that might just turn out to be a match-winning
one for them.
How
Virat Kohli escaped the ghost of 2014?
When
Kohli last visited England in 2014, he scored just 134 runs in 10
innings and on Day 2 he scored 149 in one innings to show his class
and somewhat he proved that he is world’s best batsmen in present
time. During his 149-run knock, Kohli did struggle early on in the
innings while facing the bowling of James Anderson and Sam Curran and
was even dropped in the slip cordon by Dawid Malan while batting on
21.
However, he did not let the bowlers get to his head and took on
them with aplomb as he patiently scored a century. He kept losing
wickets at the other end as none of the other batsmen managed to
cross the 30-run mark. Towards the end of the innings, Ishant Sharma
and Umesh Yadav played second fiddle and stood around at the crease
for a long time, despite scoring just 5 and 1 respectively. To put
things in perspective, 92 runs came off the last two wickets and
Ishant and Umesh just scored 6 of those. Kohli managed to keep strike
for the majority of the deliveries and hit the boundaries whenever he
got a chance.
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