England v India: first Test, day three – live! | Sport

Email, birdphone, dealer’s choice. Drop me a line with your thoughts on… let’s be honest, it will mostly be about rain.

Test cricket. You curious beast. We had a full day’s play on day one, with the extra half hour, and still only managed 81 overs. We had ongoing interruptions yesterday and managed a tick under 34 overs. Now we’ll try to resume on the third day with more rain forecast through the day, but not all at once. Hope springs.

We may be treated to the sight of Jimmy Anderson attempting to finish an over that will have spanned at least two days and four sessions of play, given that yesterday he bowled four deliveries across three segments either side of rain delays.

And we may be treated to some special counterattacking from the irrepressible Rishabh Pant, resuming with India’s opener KL Rahul. The only other time these two batted together in Tests, they bashed 204 runs in 45 overs at The Oval while threatening to chase down 464 in the fourth innings of the closing match of India’s last visit to England. It was Rishabh’s third Test match, and remains the highest partnership of his career.

With the kind of conditions that we have here, he’s much more likely to edge a swinging ball to the cordon for 13, but Rishabh has made a habit of doing things that he shouldn’t be able to do.

As for Anderson, he struck his best on day two by knocking off Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli in consecutive balls. England’s first-innings 183 could yet be competitive, when India resume on 125-4.