England's third Test with India set up for grandstand final-day finish with tourists 58-4 after late collapse but chasing just 193 runs to win at Lord's

Daily Mail​

a day ago

A pulsating Test seems determined to provide a grandstand finish after England's bowlers fought back on an impossibly tense fourth evening in St John's Wood. Set 193 to take a 2–1 lead to Manchester, India slipped from the relative comfort of 41 for one to a perilous 58 for four, with Brydon Carse and Ben Stokes ensuring a rousing conclusion to another absorbing day.
With the Lord's pitch regularly misbehaving, and India never having chased more than 173 to win a Test in this country, England will believe they can pull off a heist that their earlier display with the bat hardly deserves.
If they succeed, they will have disguised a multitude of sins. But as Carse and Stokes tore in last night, and India brazenly attempted the same time-wasting tactics employed by Zak Crawley the previous evening, no England player was too fussed about the fine print. Almost from nowhere, they have a chance of emerging from another imperfect performance with a memorable victory.
Indian jitters began early, when Yashasvi Jaiswal miscued an attempted pull off Jofra Archer, supplying the simplest of catches to Jamie Smith, and trudged off for a duck.
Had Chris Woakes held on soon after to a catchable caught-and-bowled chance in his follow-through, the limpet-like KL Rahul would have been on his way for five, and India would have been nine for two.
Instead, Rahul – one of the tourists' unsung batting heroes of this series – took the sting out of the England assault, adding an otherwise untroubled 36 with Karun Nair. But this game has ebbed this way, flowed the other, and now it changed direction once more.
England's batsmen collapsed from 154 for four to 192 all out - but their bowlers have given them a shot at victory
Nair unaccountably padded up to Carse on 14, and didn't even bother asking for a review. Then Shubman Gill, immovable at Headingley and Edgbaston, scored six skittish runs before Carse moved one back down the slope to pin him in front. India's captain wasted a review confirming the inevitable: his side were 53 for three.
Out walked Akash Deep as nightwatchman, his role two-fold: to protect Rahul, and eat up time. He managed the first, but was only partially successful at the second, hilariously summoning the physio as Crawley had done on Saturday night, but unable to lay a bat on a beauty from Stokes that straightened past the edge and knocked back off stump. Lord's erupted. One way or another, it will erupt again today.
Much will depend on Rahul, who has 33 and seems incapable of aberration. If England remove him early, they will fancy their chances. If not, they will regret folding so easily after reaching 154 for four with half an hour to go before tea.
From that high point, Joe Root was bowled round his legs for 40 trying to sweep off-spinner Washington Sundar, who then hit the stumps three more times – including Smith and Stokes – as the last six fell for 38.
And England's collapse shone a harsher light on the ongoing travails of their top order, who before lunch had taken turns to win the rosette for the daftest shot of the series.
Ben Duckett pulled Mohammed Siraj to mid-on for 12, and was rewarded with a snarling send-off that may yet interest match referee Richie Richardson. Ollie Pope was tamely trapped in front by Siraj for four as he pushed down the wrong line, and Crawley – on 22 – fecklessly flayed Nitish Kumar Reddy to the squarer of two gulleys, as if the temptation was too much. Reddy took a major detour to gloat in Crawley's direction, speaking for all of India as he rejoiced.
Worst of all was Harry Brook, who had just scooped successive balls from Akash Deep for four, then scattered the MCC members in the pavilion with a serene blow over mid-off. With lunch approaching, India looked jittery. Instead, Brook missed a sweep in Deep's next over, and was bowled behind his legs. Up in the commentary box, Kumar Sangakkara described the shot as 'arrogant'. It was hard to disagree.
Yet if Duckett and Brook remain in plenty of credit, the case for Crawley and Pope is growing untenable. Gallingly for England, it is self-inflicted: ordered by the ECB to stay at the IPL in May, Jacob Bethell missed the chance to reacquaint himself with Test cricket against Zimbabwe, and the rest has unfolded with weary predictability
Crawley and Pope helped themselves to centuries against Zimbabwe's club-standard attack, and were lauded by the management like conquering heroes. In fact, they had simply created a headache, blocking Bethell's return and kicking the can down the road.
Here we are now. Since resuming on the third morning of the first Test at Headingley with 100 to his name, Pope has scored 86 runs while being dismissed six times, reverting to his old habit of beginning a series brightly before fading. From 31 innings against India, he averages 25. Are we really to believe he is the No 3 to scare Australia?
Crawley, meanwhile, appeared to have evolved during the fourth-innings chase in Leeds, where his crucial 65 lasted nearly 200 minutes. But in five innings either side, he has totalled 63, his most memorable contribution being to wind up the entire Indian team. If, as many suspect, he remains undroppable, it is becoming ever more difficult to understand why.
Another of England's problem is Shoaib Bashir, whose nine wickets in this series have cost 59 and who is going at nearly four an over. But the finger injury he sustained on the third day could yet rule him out of the last two Tests, potentially allowing England to smuggle in Bethell – and his useful left-arm spin – through the back door.
First, though, there is a Test to win or lose. On two or three hours' play today could hinge the entire series.
TOP SPIN AT THE TEST
Twelve England batsmen have been bowled in this Test – a record for a home Test. That included the last seven in the second innings.
Joe Root, Harry Brook and Ben Stokes were bowled in both innings. The only previous time the Nos 4, 5 and 6 were all dismissed that way twice in the same Test was in 1889, when South Africa's middle order suffered the fate against England.
Ollie Pope's dismissal for four meant his second-innings average dropped below 20. In the first innings, by contrast, he averages 46.