On day three, England batsmen proved that on a crunch day and against a fine attack, they can battle it out. And former Indian cricketer Ajit Agarkar reckons that Indian skipper Virat Kohli allowed the game to drift off owing to the poor selection of attack.
Jasprit Bumrah and Ishant Sharma bagged the respective wickets of Cook and Moeen Ali, who was promoted to three, before captain Joe Root and Keaton Jennings put up a gritty 59-run partnership. However, Shami changed the surface of the game with wickets on either side of lunch. Jennings was truck plumb at 36 before the break, and Bairstow was removed for a duck after lunch, before Root lost his wicket against the run of play. With England still less than a lead of 100 runs, the lower-middle order, os Buttler (60), Ben Stokes (30) and Sam Curran (37*) all combined to take the hosts to 260/8 at stumps. England ended the day with a lead of 233 and two more wickets in hand.
I think Shami was the best bowler from the day and he bowled the least amount of overs from the top-four bowlers. For a period of 31 overs, he didn’t get to bowl. I think it is similar to what Root did, let the game drift a little bit. Again Ashwin kept bowling from one end. I can understand they wanted a lot more from Ashwin. He had a tough day. One would have expected him to impact the game with a lot more of wickets. That wasn’t necessary of him. and Hardik Pandya, just to get India off to a new ball, comes and bowls nine overs for almost four runs an over and without getting a wicket is just getting the game goes along,” the former Indian pacer told ESPN Cricinfo.
“When you know it is your second innings, and you know you don’t need to conserve your bowler for another innings, and then you give the new ball to Ashwin. On other days, it is understandable, but you have to pick your best bowlers on the day. These factors have made a definite impact on the game.”
