After a terrible morning, England picked themselves off the canvas to wrestle the initiative back from India and set up a fascinating day four.
After England started the day on 9-1, India tore through their top order, Ishant Sharma proving devastating in taking 5-51 off 13 overs as England collapsed to 87-7. Ravichandran Ashwin also offered the England batsmen a major challenge as he extracted significant turf from the Edgbaston wicket.
Ashwin finished with figures of 3-59, taking the wickets of the first three England batsmen to fall, while Sharma ripped the middle order apart until Sam Curran (who had scored 24 in England’s second innings) took control of the tail and rallied an extra 94 runs out of the lower order.
Curran played a mixture of cautious defence and attacking strokes in scoring a vital 63 off just 65 balls (nine fours and two sixes) to lift England to 180 and set India 194 for victory in the fourth innings.
A fired-up England soon had India on 22-2, but the procession of batsmen kept heading back to the pavilion as Stuart Broad, Jimmy Anderson, Ben Stokes and Sam Curran bowled superbly as they fought hard for a famous England victory. It was once again left to captain Virat Kohli to bolster the Indian innings, scoring an undefeated 43 off 76 balls as India ended day three on 110-5 off 36 overs. After Kohli, the next highest score was 13, which was shared by three of his teammates.
Jonny Bairstow took four catches, with the other wicket falling leg before to Broad.
Kohli is displaying the form and determination needed to pick off the remaining 84 runs for victory, but the England attack will not make things easy for their visitors tomorrow. If Kohli fires, it will be difficult for England to avoid defeat… but if they can knock him over early, then there promises to be little resistance from the Indian lower order.
Photo: Philip Brown/Getty Images
