BIRMINGHAM: The second over of the third day’s play was an anomaly. Mohammed Siraj lost his run-up twice before strangling Joe Root down leg, only for Rishabh Pant to complete a sharp catch. Off the next ball, Siraj found the edge of England captain Ben Stokes’ bat off a sharp delivery that reared up from a length and thudded into Pant’s gloves.
Having reduced England to 84/5 in response to India’s 587 in the first innings, it looked like Siraj and Akash Deep were bowling on a different Edgbaston pitch from the last session on Day Two. Siraj seemed to have rediscovered his rhythm.
Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!With him, India looked like moving in for the kill early on Friday morning. However, the moment Smith lunged forward to Siraj off the hat-trick ball and crunched him down the ground for a boundary, one knew Edgbaston was about to witness an all-out street fight after two days of dogged Test cricket in the second Test.
Few would have imagined at that point that it would take another 68 overs, and conceding another 324 runs, for India to eventually secure a lead of 180 runs. It’s often said that Day Three is the ‘moving day’ in a Test match. On Friday, things moved at dizzying speed, with England wicketkeeper Jamie Smith and Harry Brook bludgeoning 303 runs for the sixth wicket in 59.4 overs of exhilarating batting.
In recent times, Siraj has not looked as potent as he did on Friday, running in with all his heart, all day long, with just wickets on his mind. Siraj ran through the tail with the new ball, leaving Smith stranded unbeaten on 184 off 207 balls after Akash Deep went through the defences of Brook, who scored 158 glorious runs of 234 deliveries.
With figures of 6/70, the Siraj of old had resurfaced. India had found someone to lead the pace attack in the absence of Jasprit Bumrah. Akash Deep’s 4/88 may also have settled the nerves in the team management. Unlike the English pacers, nine of Siraj and Akash Deep’s 10 wickets came by beating the defence of the English batters, the ball either taking the outside edge or hitting the pads and the wickets. At stumps, India were 64/1, having lost the solitary wicket of Yashasvi Jaiswal, leg-before to Josh Tongue for 28. KL Rahul and Karun Nair were at the crease, with the lead stretching to 244 runs.
Smith and Brook, when they batted, didn’t merely absorb the pressure. They were out to inflict further damage to the confidence of the Indian attack, which had looked a bit out of breath in the first Test.
England’s spin-bowling coach Jeetan Patel had announced after the second day’s play that their batting lineup would find a way to get back in the game. Ravindra Jadeja said that the old ball got too soft and taking wickets would become a secondary plan. It turned out both were right.
Smith brought up his hundred off 80 balls, the joint third on the list of England’s fastest Test hundreds, inside the first session of play. For once, Brook was left in the shade. The first session went at a pace where India deployed all their strategies which created half chances. But there was nothing halfhearted in Smith and Brook’s approach. They took on the short-pitched plan and found the boundaries. They foiled India’s two-spinner plan and effortlessly chipped sixes and boundaries off Jadeja and Washington Sundar.
The boundaries were brought in by an unusual distance for this Test, liberating the already fearless mindset of the modern English batters. Washington, for one, looked clueless as Brook unleashed a series of reversesweeps and Smith kept milking him down the ground.
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