Credit: BCCI
On Saturday, July 12, the third day’s play of the third Test in the five-match series for the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy largely belonged to India, who managed to bat out the large portion of three sessions against England at Lord’s in London. In response to England’s first innings total of 387 runs, India managed to level the score by putting exactly 387 runs on the board in the latter stages of the third session on day three, essentially making it a two-day one batting innings dash for each team to the finish line.
At the start of play on day three, India were on 145/3 with KL Rahul (53*) and Rishabh Pant (19) at the crease, looking to extend their partnership to put the pressure back on England in the first session. These two batters managed to do just that with a mix of caution and aggression, taking their fourth wicket stand to 141 runs before Pant ran himself out for 74 off 112 - thanks largely to a direct hit from Ben Stokes - at the stroke of lunch while apparently trying to give the strike back to Rahul, who was 98* at the time.
The beginning of the second session saw KL Rahul bring up his 10th Test hundred in 176 balls, his second at Lord’s, but on the next ball, he lost his wicket to Shoaib Bashir, getting nicked off at first slip. After the fall of two set batters, Ravindra Jadeja and Nitish Kumar Reddy batted steadily for the entirety of the second session, accumulating runs at a comparatively lower rate to earlier part of the Indian first innings, during which Shoaib Bashir got an injured finger in his follow through as well.
Jadeja and Reddy managed to play out the tricky phase of the second new ball before the latter was dismissed by Ben Stokes with an exceptional delivery, ending his 91-ball stay at the crease for 30 runs. After the end of the 72-run partnership with Reddy, the veteran all-rounder put on another valuable stand with fellow all-rounder Washington Sundar, adding 50 runs to the Indian total, to bring them very close to parity on the first innings.
Following the completion of his 25th Test fifty, Ravindra Jadeja eventually lost his wicket against the run of play, guiding the leg side delivery through to wicketkeeper Jamie Smith for 72 off 131. After surviving lbw twice on DRS on the bowling of Chris Woakes, Akash Deep hit a six on the bowling of Jofra Archer prior to losing his wicket to Brydon Carse, and minutes later, India levelled the score towards the end of day three before Jasprit Bumrah was dismissed for yet another duck in the series.
Washington Sundar tried to farm the strike while looking to hit the boundaries with Mohammed Siraj at the other end, but with the field well spread by England, he could only find deep third man on the bowling of Jofra Archer, losing his wicket on 23 runs in 76 balls. With the parity restored, the second innings of England began with opener Zak Crawley doing everything to make it one over before stumps, and he successfully survived it from Jasprit Bumrah as well while scoring a couple of runs, but there was a lot of heated argument between him and Indian players for his gamesmanship.
