At Stumps on Day 3, scoreboard read 110 for the loss of 5 wickets. The visitors still need 84 more runs for a famous victory at Edgbaston. On the other hand, England would be keen to remove Virat Kohli,centurion from the first innings as quickly as possible and four more wickets to get the lead 1-0.
At the beginning of the day, England had already lost Alastair Cook overnight. Ravinchandran Ashwin who accounted for the former skipper also got out Keaton Jennings and Joe Root. Jennings edged one to KL Rahul at second slip. While Root who was looking for a leg glance managed to find KL Rahul at leg slip who took a blinder.
Ishant Sharma was the pick of the bowlers today. With the angle from round the wicket, he squared up David Malan and Ben Stokes in the same over. Edges were found on both occassions and taken at the slip cordons. He also got rid of Bairstow who was caught by Shikhar Dhawan at first slip. Soon after the Lunch break, Jos Buttler trying to score got out edging one to Dinesh Karthik.
By then the score was 87-7 with England leading just by 100 runs. Then it was Sam Curran all the way. He struck an important 48 runs partnership with Adil Rashid. Umesh got rid of Rashid. But there was no stopping Sam Curran. Although there were 2 dropped catches he played well. Boundaries kept coming from him highlight of that being six hit of a ball to Ishant Sharma over extra cover. Ishant got to a fifer dismissing Stuart Broad. Sam Curran also departed shortly after that trying to guide one to third man and was caught by the wicket-keeper.
But by then, he had already shifted the momentum into England's favor. Though 194 seemed easy, it was still tough due to ball moving around and the overcast conditions as well.
India's woes continued with the moving ball. Murali Vijay left alone a delivery that came back in. He was trapped in front and given out. Shikhar Dhawan again looking to drive only to find an edge to Bairstow. KL Rahul who is batting at number 3 in place of Pujara got out at 13 again edging to Bairstow. Now the pressure was back on Virat Kohli to deliver. There was a huge relief for India when he managed to overturn umpire's decision courtesy DRS.
Similar to 1st innings, Kohli was running short of partners at the other end. Ajinkya Rahane chased a wide delivery managing to find an inside-edge to Bairstow. Ashwin showed some elegant drives but James Anderson was far too good for him. He shortened the length a bit as he saw Ashwin taking a stride out and found the edge. That was the last wicket to fall.
Kohli on 43* and Dinesh Karthik on 18* made sure that there were no more errors. With this, the hope for chasing down the target is still intact.
We hope to see a hard fought contest between both the teams on Day 4 tomorrow .