Final day poised on a knife-edge

London: The fuse was lit on Saturday evening and the sparks flew continuously on Sunday as a young and aspirational India upped their aggression by several notches but an equally fired-up England struck some telling blows of their own to leave the fascinatingly fought third Test right tantalisingly poised with a day to go.

India were given just six minutes to have a go at England on Saturday evening, but that fraction of a time created plenty of theatre that had everyone at Lord’s salivating. England opener Zak Crawley tried to run down the clock with some old-school ugly tricks in a bid to restrict India from bowling two overs. Crawley’s tactics, which batters tend to do with stumps at sight, irked India skipper Shubman Gill, who gave an earful to the English batter in colourful language that’s unpublishable. Duckett then got involved, the rest of the Indians converged at the middle of the pitch before the umpires intervened to calm things down. The ‘Home of Cricket’ was set up beautifully for a Super Sunday.

And the day of Sabbath totally lived up to the hype as the sold-out crowd at the iconic venue got their monies worth. India carried on from where they left off the previous evening, mixing brilliant bowling with a good amount of in-your-face aggression and verbal jousts. Jasprit Bumrah (2/38) got balls to spit off venomously from good-length areas, hitting Crawley’s gloves on a couple of occasions, the wholehearted Mohammed Siraj (2/31) bowled mesmerisingly, the military medium Nitish Kumar Reddy too was all pumped up, close-in fielders kept buzzing constantly, Washington Sundar (4/22) bowled a great spell that wrecked England’s resurrection…it was Test cricket at its riveting best.

England, who sensed India would come all out against them, arrived prepared for the fight. But the sheer intensity of India’s punches was too strong for them as they withered in the opening session, losing four wickets for just 98 runs. They counter-punched through skipper Ben Stokes (27 batting) and Joe Root (40) in the second, but the Indians, led exceptionally by the young Gill, kept throwing in the hooks and jabs to dismiss the visitors for 192 in the final session.

In a series where no quarter has been given nor taken, England ensured the chase will be an arduous one for the Indians as their pacers bent their backs, the action and intensity of the cracking game not dipping one moment even until the last ball. They got off to a perfect defence when Jofra Archer dismissed a visibly exhausted Yashasvi Jaiswal for a duck in the second over. First-innings centurion KL Rahul (33 batting) and his childhood friend Karun Nair (14) calmed the nerves with a composed 36-run stand for the second wicket, but Brydon Carse (2/11) got the crowd-buzzing with a scorching spell late in the day to leave India in a spot at 58/4, the visitors needing another 135 runs for a 2-1 lead.

Earlier, the Indians came out charging at the start of the day in a bid to seize the initiative. Bumrah, who bagged a five-for in the first innings, was in his elements from the Nursery End, dishing out some unplayable deliveries. Siraj, one of the heroes in the Edgbaston Test and a deeply passionate performer, was equally potent as England found the going tough. Crawley and Duckett figured attack could the best of defence, but that brought about the downfall of the latter. That was the opening India were looking for that saw Duckett and a fired-up Siraj brush shoulders. That set the tone for another rip-roaring day with more to come on Monday which promises to be manic.