India v/s England: Order after hara-kiri

It took two brilliant pieces of fielding in the day's last session – a diving catch by Chris Woakes and a direct hit from point by Jos Buttler – to even out all the good work done by Cheteshwar Pujara and skipper Virat Kohli on the second day of the third Test here on Sunday.

There was madness all over the centre pitch. Within the space of 19 deliveries, India were reduced from a comfortable position of 148/2 to 156/5. The rewards for restricting England to mark 283 were vanishing quickly and Kohli was looking helpless soon after the tea interval.

And, there was no role, whatsoever, of this highly controversial Mohali pitch until now. One has to admit that the pitch has been playing much better than most of us expected, keeping in mind the nature of the pitches of the last two games.

And, when skipper Kohli too made his departure after snicking Ben Stokes behind, it was all left to two Indian all-rounders – Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja – to help the hosts crawl to a safe position around English total. With Ashwin having four Test centuries to his name ad Jadeja three triple centuries in first-class cricket, the task was tough but certainly not impossible.

When stumps were drawn, India were not just crawling but speeding up to catch the England total through the undefeated 67-run stand for the seventh wicket between Ashwin and Jadeja. India ended the day at 271/6 with Ashwin unbeaten on 57 and Jadeja on 31 with a help of his trademark six.

The hosts were only 12 runs short of England's total and with the second new all already four over old, Monday's morning session could well see India taking the all-important first innings lead.

All these happened after Mohammed Shami folded the English innings in just fourteen minutes by picking up the remaining two wickets on Sunday morning. Shami first had Adil Rashid caught behind before uprooting the Gareth Batty's stump with a perfect inswinger.

Murali Vijay came out to bat with a new partner, Parthiv Patel, and the two looked confident to start the reply. Patel, in particular, hardly showed any nerves and kept playing in his typical style of soft hands. He was lucky to have escaped a caught behind decision early on after DRS showed the ball to brush hip and not the bat, but Vijay had no such issues in the middle. He lost his concentration when he decided to flick Moeen Ali through mid-wicket to see Buttler unsuccessfully taking a flying catch towards his right side.

Vijay only survived till the very next over as Ben Stokes's wide delivery forced him to hang his bat in the air. There was a loud appeal but umpire Chris Gaffaney looked unimpressed, but Vijay displayed true cricketing spirit to start a walk towards the pavilion to everyone's surprise at the team's total of 39.

Patel survived the first session but was dismissed soon after lunch when Rashid won a leg before decision in replay.

It was the turn of Pujara and Kohli again to take India out of trouble like many other occasions in recent times. The English bowlers were getting help from the pitch but the two Indians were patient enough to negotiate the reverse swing of James Anderson and Chris Woakes during this time. Pujara did get a life at 35 but never lost his focus as the two added 75 before going into tea break.

As soon as Pujara fell for 51 soon after resumption, caught brilliantly at deep mid-wicket by Woakes, Ajinkya Rahane and debutant Karun Nair wasted no time to follow him back to the pavilion.

One could give benefit of doubt to Nair as his skipper Kohli made a late decision to send him back from what was looking like a single, but not to the experienced and dependable Rahane for not reading Rashid's wrong 'un.

The tourists now need to take the last four wicket of India quickly in order to press their advantage of winning a crucial toss here. Though the wicket has managed to hold on for the first two days, but conceding a lead of anything above 50 could well be the last thing they would want on a surface that would not hold on for long.