Nottingham: KL Rahul’s resilient 84 coupled with Ravindra Jadeja’s breezy 56 led India’s fightback on Day 3 of the first Test at Trent Bridge on Thursday posting 278 with a hopeful lead of 95. England in their second innings just started their proceedings at 25 when the play was called off due to rain with both the openers still at the crease trailing 70 runs.
India resumed the day struggling with an overnight score of 125/4. Rishabh Pant initiated a fightback with a quick 25 before falling to Olie Robinson. Jadeja, who is among the best Test allrounders in the world since 2018 provided much-needed support to Rahul who was anchoring the innings.
Together, the duo stitched added 60 runs seeing through the most testing spell of the day when James Anderson and Olie Robinson were asking questions together. Rahul missed out on a deserving hundred, caught behind by Jos Buttler off Anderson just 16 short but India already had taken some sort of lead.
Jadeja followed him soon after bringing up a breezy half-century. India’s tail was left exposed having a task on their hands and it became more difficult after the departure of Shardul Thakur who has the reputation of a good player down the order. However, the last three Jasprit Bumrah(28), Mohammad Shami(13) and Mohammad Siraj stuck at the crease determined to pack a punch and they did their best to give the visitors a
Robinson (5/85) picked up his maiden fifer along with veteran Anderson (4/54) claiming four wickets to become the third-highest wicket-taker of all time in the tests. England though in their first few overs of the 2nd innings edged past a few tricky questions asked by the visitors. Indians having a hopeful lead will be trying their best to restrict England on the fourth day if they want to give themselves an edge.
Brief scores: England 183 all out & 25/0 ( Rory Burns 11 not out, Dominic Sibley 9 not out) vs India 278 all out (KL Rahul 84, Ravindra Jadeja 56; Ollie Robinson 5/85, James Anderson 4/54). England trail by 70 runs.
