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At the start of the Day 2, India were reeling at 174-6 but thanks to half-centuries from debutant Hanuma Vihari and Ravindra Jadeja, India could manage a total of 292, conceding England a lead of 40 runs in the first innings.
In their second innings, the English openers operated with caution but Keyton Jennings could not sustain the pressure and was bowled for 10 runs off Shami's bowling. Alastair Cook and Moeen Ali put together a partnership of 35 runs for the second wicket before the later was cleaned by a beauty from Jadeja.
After the all-rounder's dismissal, Cook joined hands with the English skipper. Before the end of the day, Joe Root and Alastair Cook together added 52 runs to the scoreboard and will look to add many more on Day 4. Cook, who is playing the last match of his career, needs just four runs to make a half-century.
Before the start of the fourth day's play let us look at the reactions to Day 3 of the final Test:
Hanuma Vihari:
Speaking about the pressure of his debut, the half-centurion said: "Initially I felt the pressure, to be honest, going in yesterday, cloudy conditions and Stuart Broad and Anderson bowling at you. Initially, as I said, I had nerves. With that, I wasn't good with my decision making. But having Virat at the other end made my job a little easier, I guess. His inputs helped me initially. He's been playing very confidently throughout the series and his confidence boosted me at the other end. I will give a lot of credit to him for helping me out yesterday initially. But once I settled down, the wicket was very good to bat on especially with the medium pacers it got a lot slower yesterday. I got myself in and tried to capitalise as much as I could."
He also spoke about the spell by Ben Stokes in which the all-rounder tried to unsettle the debutant. "Usually when I bat, I try to ignore all the things which come at me. I just tried to focus on my own game. That's the style of cricket I tried to play. Obviously, Virat is very aggressive as you'll know. He also had a go at Ben Stokes. That's how the game is played nowadays and that's how Indian cricket is. But my aggression is something which I want to do with the bat. Obviously, if it gets personal then I might say something back at him. But as long as it's healthy then everyone likes to have some banter on the cricket field. My style of play is to try to ignore and focus on my own game."
Viihari also mentioned that he called Rahul Dravid before the match. "I got to know the day before the match. Obviously, I was very thrilled. Because that was my dream, growing up playing cricket. I first informed my family about it and they were very very happy as well. I called him the day before I made my debut and told him I was making my debut. He spoke to me for a couple of minutes and gave his inputs and I thought it eased my nerves a little bit because it's coming from a legend and you know that you belong here. He just told me that you have the skill set, you have the mindset and the temperament, just go out there and enjoy yourself."
He concluded by saying "it's just the start. I know I have to do a lot of things to cement my place in the Indian team, which I definitely want to do. Getting a half-century on debut is just the start."
Paul Farbrace:
England's assistant coach, Paul Farbrace came in support of the out of form English opener Keyton Jennings who has been facing quite a lot of flak recently. "I would like to think he's done enough in difficult situations to be opening the batting come the first Test in Sri Lanka. I would like to think - and it's only a personal view - that the selectors will stick with him."
"It was only a small passage of play - of course he knows he wants big scores, hundreds, fifties, big partnerships - but the partnership we had today, at an important time when we've only got a lead of forty, what we couldn't afford to do was lose two quick early wickets and allow India to get back in the game."
"The one thing that has been quite impressive is that you'd never know looking at him that he's actually not scored as many runs as he would have liked. Again today, he went out looking positive, his feet were moving nicely. He has tried exceptionally hard to get stuck in but, ultimately, as a player, you're judged on the amount of runs you scored. We can say from our point of view that he's played two important innings in this game to help us not lose early wickets and give us a chance of getting a score."
Harsha Bhogle:
Wriddhiman Saha:
Harbhajan Singh:
Aakash Chopra:
Mohammad Kaif:
Micheal Vaughan:
Some other interesting tweets:
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