One of the many enduring qualities about Test cricket and its five-day canvas is a team’s ability to stage a comeback. The third day in Ranchi now sits among the countless examples, India not so much turning the tide as utterly parting the waves with first a characterful lower-order rally and then an intoxicating display of spin bowling.

Ben Stokes and the rest of the England team were in a strong position as they got off the team bus. Their opponents were trailing by 134 runs and only had three wickets remaining in their first innings. However, by the end of the day, the England players were feeling completely defeated as India had already scored 40 runs towards their small target of 192 without losing any wickets.

As English players went to bed, there was a lot to think about, including a missed catch by Ollie Robinson during Dhruv Jurel’s impressive 90 runs in the morning. The struggle continued as England’s batting performance took a sharp decline, with the team scoring only 145 runs and losing seven wickets for just 35 runs.

The only comfort was found in the fact that Ravichandran Ashwin, with five wickets for 51 runs, and Kuldeep Yadav, with four wickets for 22 runs, were able to create chaos on the unpredictable and fractured pitch. It remains to be seen if the inexperienced bowlers can replicate this performance on day four, despite the impressive debut of Shoaib Bashir with a five-wicket haul.

Many players returned to the morning session, as Jurel and the lower-order batsmen gradually reduced the previous day’s deficit to only 46 runs. This was only the beginning, as Rohit Sharma made the decision to give Ashwin the new ball after lunch. The 37-year-old then proceeded to showcase his skill with a remarkable and strategic delivery of off-spinners and square-seamed sliders.

In a matter of moments, the starting gun was fired – specifically in the fifth round – and Ashwin quickly dismissed both Ben Duckett and Ollie Pope in just two balls. Duckett weakly poked the ball to short leg, going against his usual strategy of attacking as a form of defense. Meanwhile, Pope earned his first pair in Test cricket when he was declared leg before wicket by a straight ball. Despite the advantages of batting at No 3, Pope still tends to start off energetically.

There was no question about the wicket that Ashwin valued the most in his 35th five-wicket haul. After 36 minutes of resistance, Joe Root was caught lbw for 11 runs. Sharma had to review the decision, but despite complaints from the English team, Root was declared out. Hawk-Eye technology showed that Ashwin, bowling from around the wicket, had landed the ball just inside the line of the stump. In this case, there is no room for an umpire’s decision.

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Zak Crawley, the opening batsman, stood out amidst the initial struggles of 19 for two and 65 for three with a magnificent score of 60 from 91 balls, displaying skillful shots on the off-side. However, it required a clever tactic to dismiss him. Sharma enticed him with a tempting drive by bowling in his preferred scoring zone, and Kuldeep, the left-arm spinner, bowled a sharp delivery that hit the stumps.

Could anyone else have imitated Crawley’s actions? Stokes may have been pondering this during the tea break. He was the fifth wicket to fall with 120 runs on the scoreboard, after a difficult 13-ball four. Kuldeep, who poses a challenge with his unique left-arm angle, took the wicket once again. His delivery would have resulted in an lbw if it hadn’t rolled onto the stumps afterwards.

At this point, Jonny Bairstow had performed decently, reaching a score of 30, but then made a mistake and hit the first ball of the evening session to Ravindra Jadeja at cover. This put Ben Foakes in charge of leading a vulnerable lower order, which is not his strong suit despite being a reliable support for those above him. Foakes only managed to score 17 runs before India took out his partners, with England’s wicketkeeper being the second-to-last player to be dismissed when Ashwin caught a return catch.

Robinson’s unfortunate dismissal, lbw to Kuldeep on the third ball, marked the end of a forgettable day for the seamer. In the midst of a string of wickets, his earlier dropped catch off Jurel became even more significant. Stokes was visibly unhappy and promptly removed Robinson from his mid-wicket position after Jurel’s shot off Bashir slipped through his fingers.

It just seemed so casual, much like the unthreatening four-over spell that started the day and hovered in the mid-70s on the speed gun. Robinson’s tally of front-foot no-balls also rose to six in his first match since July, and 77 in his Test career overall – one more than his number of wickets. Even with 58 runs in the first dig, he remains a source of frustration.

Kuldeep had a similar experience with Stokes, as he scored 28 runs from 131 balls in his longest first-class innings. He also had a 76-run partnership with Jurel for the eighth wicket, but was eventually dismissed by Anderson after a drag-on. The game then turned into a strategic battle, with Jurel, who had been playing conservatively, taking advantage of his second chance and hitting Bashir for 24 runs in just 16 balls.

Bashir, at the age of 20 years and 135 days, became the second-youngest bowler for England to take five wickets in a match, following Rehan Ahmed’s record in 2022. He achieved this feat by bowling a slider that trapped Akash Deep lbw. Hartley quickly took his 19th wicket of the series by bowling a beautiful delivery that dismissed Jurel. However, the last ball of the innings, which beat the batter’s outside edge and hit the off-stump, foreshadowed the chaos that would occur next.

Source: theguardian.com