Rohit Sharma
Rohit and KL Rahul started brilliantly and picked up from where they left off yesterday to frustrate the England bowlers in the morning session. However, James Anderson soon dismissed Rahul for 46 runs to give his team the breakthrough. After England scored 290, taking a first innings lead of 99 runs, Rohit and Rahul survived a good spell of bowling to see the visitors through to Stumps without any damage done to the wickets column. England, who edged ahead thanks to half-centuries from Ollie Pope and Chris Woakes, will be confident in their bowling attack once again, after they dismissed India for just 191 in the first innings. Rohit Sharma has had a couple of fifties on this tour and everyone knew that a 100 is just around the corner. It was unlike Rohit Sharma as he ate up too many balls and gave few chances as well.
It was KL Rahul who took the charge and let Rohit Sharma settle in. Cheteshwar Pujara came and started playing shots and that took a lot of pressure of Rohit Sharma who took all the time in this world and scored his first overseas 100. All the critics who felt that he might struggle in the overseas conditions is the highest runs scorer for India till this point. This is also the first time that both Indian openers have scored over 300 runs in the same series. While scoring century Rohit Sharma also reached the milestone of scoring 3000 Test runs. He also completed 15000 international runs with this knock. He got to his 100 by smashing Moen Ali coming down the track and sent it into the crowd. This is the third instance when Rohit Sharma has got to 100 with a six.
One word for Cheteshwar Pujara who has scored 3rd fifty of the series and has for time being have shut the critics. The wicket was hardly doing anything and Pujara decided to play his shots. He played aggressively against Moen Ali as he backed himself to come down the track and unsettle his length. He and Pujara put on 153 runs stand and brought India right back into the game. Just when England took the new ball, Ollie Robinson removed both set batsmen Rohit Sharma and Cheteshwar Pujara in the same over. India’s lead was close to 150 when both got out and it was up to captain Kohli and rest of the batters to take India’s lead past 300 to have a chance of winning the match and making sure that they can’t lose the series. All the cricket experts and former cricketer’s lauded Rohit Sharma’s knock as he played as per the conditions and yet again got out playing his favourite pull shot. However, he put India in commanding position before getting out and has done all the hard work to India’s middle order batsmen to capitalize and post a good total. The wickets looks pretty good to bat on and India will need a score in excess of 300 to put England under pressure. At the end of day 3, India were 270 for 3 as Kohli and Jadeja made sure that India don’t lose another wicket after two back to back wickets.