NewsManic Monday, day five, and no-one inside Lord’s really knows which way this third Test will break. England need six wickets, India 135 runs. Simple on paper, anything but on the field.
According to England assistant coach Marcus Trescothick, both camps are “desperate to win,” the tension ratcheted ever higher by a weekend that has already delivered collapses, counter-attacks and quite a lot of short stuff. “Well, if I knew that, I could probably relax a little bit easier coming into tomorrow,” he said when asked who holds the edge. “But of course, both teams are desperate to win.”
England think the new ball will be pivotal. Sanjay Manjrekar, working the TV stint, put the equation at 70-30 in England’s favour, explaining the fresh cherry “creates problems for batters”. Trescothick struck a slightly less bullish note but did underline how crucial the opening burst will be. “It’s going to be amazing, isn’t it? Already we’ve seen four good days of cricket and two games, which have been well supported, but that last sort of hour or half an hour, the support and the energy around the ground made it amazing really, didn’t it? Everybody was invested into it.”
A sell-out crowd certainly played its part. On Sunday morning Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj tied England down; by late afternoon Brydon Carse and Ben Stokes had flipped the mood, their three-wicket burst leaving India 58 for 4 and the noise levels bouncing off the pavilion. England still have hurdles, though, not least the man unbeaten at the crease.
KL Rahul is 33 not out, the sort of 33 that looks bigger when you remember he banked a century in the first innings. Also in the shed is Rishabh Pant, always a walking plot twist, with Ravindra Jadeja, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Washington Sundar behind him. Trescothick was clear about the danger men: Rahul and Pant. “KL’s been classical old-school style of Test cricket and he’s left the ball really well, his judgment of the length is good, looked to bat for a long period of time and he’s done it well,” he noted. “Obviously [Rahul got] a hundred in the first innings. Hopefully we can get him out early and we can start getting into the rest of the tail as they come along. But he’s been pretty dominant in a few of the games that he’s played and he’s pretty much got a score in most innings that he’s played.”
As for Pant, nobody attempts to second-guess him these days. He could reverse-scoop Stokes into the Tavern Stand or chip meekly to mid-off; England will not be relaxed until he’s gone. Manjrekar, who called Siraj’s spell “lion-hearted”, suggested Pant’s shot selection will be every bit as important as England’s lines with the new ball.
Conditions should be helpful. The pitch is wearing but still playing decently; overhead there’s talk of early cloud, later sun. Swing may last an hour, maybe two. After that it could turn into a grind, the kind India relish when Rahul digs in. The hosts believe back-to-back wickets – Rahul, Pant, Jadeja – would slam the door. India, meanwhile, still talk wistfully of their 2021 heist here and see shades of that finale now.
Moments to watch: Stokes’s first spell – how quick, how full? Carse’s control with a ball only ten deliveries old. And Rahul’s opening leave: if the bat comes down late, Knott-style, England may sigh. If it jabs nervously, expect slips to bubble.
There’s also the small matter of series context. Locked at 1-1, a win puts either side one hand on the trophy and, more than that, a mental upper hand heading into Trent Bridge. Little wonder Trescothick was half smiling, half fidgeting at stumps: “Hopefully we can get a bit more of that tomorrow and we can sort of push forward to winning the game.”
The maths is easy, the cricket rarely so. Whatever happens, Lord’s promises another noisy, slightly chaotic Monday.
