It wasn’t the most entertaining of sessions by any means. England had 405 runs to win ahead of them and a minimum of 150 overs to get them. A required run-rate of 2.7 isn’t unheard of in Test cricket and the Vizag pitch had not cracked open entirely. There was still enough scope for the batsmen to score runs off. There were the odd balls that skidded off the surface and kept low, some that bounced higher than expected, but still nothing to justify England’s run-rate of 1.43 in the post-lunch session, which saw them score 40/0 in 28 overs.
Alastair Cook and Haseeb Hameed had entered a blockathon and were doing quite well for themselves as the umpires signalled tea. They had been beaten quite a few times by the Indian pacers and spinners, young Hameed had even took one short delivery on the chest, but they did not allow anything to ruffle them. Virat Kohli introduced spin in the form of Ravichandran Ashwin in the sixth over itself, but even he, who took a fifer in the first innings, was unable to break through their defences.
England would have gladly taken a wicketless session when they set out to bat in the fourth innings. They have to play out a minimum of 120 overs more if they are going for a draw, but then if they can actually bat for 120 overs, why not go for the win? At the moment, that will not be on the mind of Cook and Hameed, who will be looking to extend their stay in the middle till tea. If they manage to do that, India will definitely start to feel the jitters.
It’s a game of patience now in Vizag and the team that manages to sustain theirs the longest will come out on top. A draw or a win will be huge for England considering where they were at the end of three days – and the stuff of nightmares for India.
Brief score:
India 455 (Virat Kohli 167, Cheteshwar Pujara 119; Moeen Ali 3/98, James Anderson 3/62) and 204 (Virat Kohli 81, Jayant Yadav 27*; Stuart Broad 4/33, Adil Rashid 4/82) lead England 255 (Ben Stokes 70, Joe Root 53; Ravichandran Ashwin 5/67, Mohammed Shami 1/28) and 40/0 (Alastair Cook 28*, Haseeb Hameed 12*) by 364 runs.