To call the third day in Ranchi a rollercoaster would be like describing the Hundred Years’ War as a minor skirmish. It featured 13 wickets, 273 runs and, to the delight of the home crowd, an intoxicating display of spin bowling that saw England collapse in a heap.
Ben Stokes and his tourists had stepped off the bus first thing looking to consolidate a position of strength, India resuming their first innings 134 runs behind with just three wickets in hand. But the tourists were back out there bowling with a target of just 192 to defend, their hosts cruising to 40 for no loss from eight overs when night time called.
There was a fair bit for English minds to chew on as heads hit , not least a dropped catch by Ollie Robinson that came 59 runs into wicketkeeper Dhruv Jurel’s tone-shifting 90 in the morning. But they would have been more consumed by the nosedive that followed, rolled for 145 all out after losing their last seven wickets for just 35 runs.
Was it enough? It simply had to be, the only consolation coming from how Ravichandran Ashwin, five for 51, and Kuldeep Yadav, four for 22, mustered up such utter mischief from the capricious, cracked surface. Whether a greenhorn attack can do the same on day four, even with Shoaib Bashir fresh from a maiden five wicket-haul, is another matter.
The morning had been relatively pedestrian – albeit maddening for Stokes – as Jurel and the tail whittled the overnight deficit down to just 43 runs. Events after lunch were anything but, however, as Rohit Sharma handed Ashwin the new ball and watched him deliver a brilliant, probing display of off-spinners and square-seamed sliders.
It was the old master who fired the starting pistol in the fifth over, Ashwin vaporising Ben Duckett and Ollie Pope in the space of two balls. Duckett prodded meekly to short-leg – his best form of defence remains to attack – while Pope completed his first pair in Test cricket when pinned lbw by a straight one. For all the upside, the No 3 remains a frenetic starter.
But there was little doubt as to the wicket Ashwin prized most among this 35th five-wicket haul, Joe Root trapped lbw for 11 after 36 minutes of defiance. It required a review from Rohit Sharma but for all the English chuntering that followed, Root was out. Hawkeye showed that Ashwin, around the wicket, had pitched the middle of the ball a whisker inside the line. This runs from the outside of the stump and there is no umpire’s call.
At the other end from the initial chaos of 19 for two and then 65 for three was Zak Crawley, the opener showing the way with a princely 60 from 91 balls full of off-side elan. It took a smart plan to shift him, too, Sharma opening up his preferred scoring zone to invite the drive as Kuldeep, his left-armer, spun one sharply into his stumps.
Might others have followed Crawley’s lead? It was a question Stokes was probably asking himself at tea, his the fifth wicket to fall with 120 runs on the board after a slightly tortured 13-ball four. Kudleep was again the bowler to strike here, a shooter that would have seen his mark lbw had it not then rolled on to the stumps.
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Once Jonny Bairstow’s more positive 30 ended with the first ball after the resumption, chipping Ravindra Jadeja to cover, it was over to Ben Foakes and the tail. Though a cool wingman for those above him, marshalling those lower is not his forte and despite chiselling out 17 – last man out to Ashwin, caught and bowled – the end always felt nigh.
Among this limp conclusion came the demise of Robinson, lbw third ball to Kuldeep, on a pretty forgettable day for the seamer, all told. His drop in the morning, as Jurel trebled his overnight 30 and gave the deficit a haircut, looked ever more crucial during the later cascade of wickets. Stokes was not exactly thrilled at the time, instantly banishing Robinson from mid-wicket when Jurel’s clip off Bashir burst through his hands.
Robinson’s unthreatening four-over spell, in the mid-70s on the speed gun, also set the tone first thing. In his first competitive match since last July, his tally of front-foot no-balls rose to six in the innings and 77 in his Test career overall, one more than his number of wickets. Even with 58 runs in the first dig, he remains a frustration for his captain.
Kuldeep was much the same, his longest first-class innings – 28 from 131 balls, one half of a 76-run eighth-wicket stand – finally snuffed out in the 16th over of the day when Jimmy Anderson forced a drag-on. A game of cat and mouse followed, the compact Jurel cutting loose after his reprieve from Robinson and clobbering Bashir for 24 from his next 16 balls.
Bashir was not to be denied, however, at 20 years and 135 days becoming the second-youngest bowler, after Rehan Ahmed in 2022, to claim a five-wicket haul for the England men’s side, with a slider that pinned Akash Deep lbw. Hartley then wrapped up the innings with his his 19th wicket of the series, Jurel finally bowled by a beauty. But that beauty – beating the batter on the outside and rattling off-stump – merely signposted the chaos that was about to follow.