[NPV]

England 30/0 chasing 378 for a historic win, definitely possible if their batting clicks.

But, 350+ chases in the fourth innings are never easy, so it could end up as a near miss. Just hope the Indian bowling comes good once more and gets 10 English wickets.

Possibly one of the lessons learnt from their first inning, England seem to be maintaining a decent run rate now.

[vibbs]

Originally Posted by NPV

England 30/0 chasing 378 for a historic win, definitely possible if their batting clicks.

I think with this start, they have a good chance. Most likely they will win this match by 5 wickets in the third session tomorrow.

[dailydriver]

The way things are going at present, it is very likely that England will more or Less Crawl towards victory by tomorrow afternoon.

Excellent and confident opening partnership.

Will any Indian bowler be able to pull out a rabbit from his hat?

With 100 already conceded in 20 overs, I doubt if anything that they do will be able to test the batsmen.

[Bhargav7]

That has been a fantastic start for England! That said, they still need 270 odd runs with 9 wickets remaining. I am aware of the Bazball, Bairstow, and Stokes - but still feel that India is a favorite to win the match.

We have Shami, after all.

[NPV]

Bairstow and Root going well and both in the 70's now, with just 119 more runs needed, looks like it's England's game. Amazing fourth inning chase so far, hats off to England.

[jkrishnakj]

Looks like it’s curtains for India. Nothing short of a fiery inspired spell giving 2-3 quick wickets can save us.

Else, like NPV says, we will say ‘Hats off’ to England and carry on.

[msdivy]

India started with an 80:20 advantage. Due to poor bowling and positive batting by England, that advantage has come down. The morning session in this test has assisted the bowlers. I think it is still 50:50.

Originally Posted by PreludeSH

Kohli is an embarrassment to people watching cricket.

People put up with his antics for his batting exploits. What we have now is Kohli's antics minus the batting.

[PreludeSH]

One thing I have reached a conclusion on is that IPL has given us a lot of average or just above average cricketers
Shardul, Samson, Iyer etc. Few have actually stepped up in the international arena winning games like youngsters of the previous generation would by making big match winning contributions (like Pant currently)

[ValarMorghulis]

This test is another example of the Indian team fizzling out in the second innings. About time we hold the batters responsible.
Kohli needs to do something. Either go back to domestic and earn his place or leave tests.
Shradul/ Iyer need to be re-looked. We can't have an allrounder and the wicketkeeper bail us out every time.

Absolutely disappointing test. After bossing the English for 3 days we've simply let this test slip away.

[redCherry]

Originally Posted by msdivy

People put up with his antics for his batting exploits. What we have now is Kohli's antics minus the batting.

. I for one was always a critic of him for his antics, never was a fan of him for this reason even when he was in his prime in batting, despite me liking most of his trademark shots.

Originally Posted by PreludeSH

One thing I have reached a conclusion on is that IPL has given us a lot of average or just above average cricketers
Shardul, Samson, Iyer etc.

That was my conclusion since very long time.
Media also has a part in it, by over-emphasizing avg. players from IPL

[Eddy]

Originally Posted by PreludeSH

Shardul, Samson, Iyer etc.

I would not put Samson in that list. He has never put his hand up for red ball cricket, and IMO deserves a place in the playing 11 in any T20 side. More than Rohit & Virat.

Shardul is truly a bits and pieces cricketer.

Shreyas needs a good batting coach, so there is hope that he may step up.

[Oxy]

Batting is a huge problem, but we don't have bowlers with the killer instinct too. We should have never allowed them to finish at 284 in the first innings after we reduced them to 83/5.

Similarly, I would expect the bowlers to get us wickets on a deteriorating 4th day pitch and they have proved to be useless there too.

Batting wise, Vikram Rathore needs to be held accountable. He has been the batting coach for ages and batting has been a massive weakness for us under him.

[redCherry]

We win this test match or not, but it was definitely intriguing, unlike those countless/meaningless T20s our esteemed board plans every year.

Matches like this, and the approach England is following in test cricket off late, makes them interesting. It's a whiff of fresh air for tests.

[PPS]

A very timid defensive batting performance by Team India in the 2nd innings! They ideally should have batted England out of the Test. Instead, England are just a session away from a famous win. Only rain & Bumrah/Shami can save India now, hear its overcast there right now. Jadeja struggles to bat with the tail,he should have batted ahead of Shreyas Iyer yesterday. Lot of talk about Baz Ball, but if you see yesterday they were proper cricketing shots all along. Credit to the New England. They've made Test Cricket exciting.

Originally Posted by ValarMorghulis

Bottom 2 select themselves as well:
Shami
Bhumrah

I think I read somewhere that Shami isn't a part of the scheme of things for the WT20.

Originally Posted by Oxy

Similarly, I would expect the bowlers to get us wickets on a deteriorating 4th day pitch and they have proved to be useless there too.

Pitch hasn't deteriorated at all! Apart from a few footmarks outside the left-handers off stump which Jadeja has been trying to utilise to stem the run flow.

[Oxy]

Originally Posted by PPS

Pitch hasn't deteriorated at all! Apart from a few footmarks outside the left-handers off stump which Jadeja has been trying to utilise to stem the run flow.

Pujara escaped a couple of times with the ball keeping low, while Kohli got out to one the bounced almost shoulder high.

Uneven bounce was definitely there.