Key events
Guess who has the new ball in his hand? Ladies and gentlemen, from the Nursery End…. JASPRIT BUMRAH!
England will have six minutes to bat, so realistically a maximum of two overs. India’s players huddle in beautiful early evening sunlight. Here come Messrs Crawley and Duckett!
Lollers from Roller:
India all out 387 (both sides level after one innings!)
Sundar gets a top edge off Archer and it flies into the safe hands of Harry Brook at long leg! Nothing to split the two sides after one innings and nearly three days, England’s openers scamper off as they will have maybe two overs to face this evening. Do not adjust your sets.
119th over: India 387-9 (Sundar 22, Siraj 0) India’s last man Mohammed Siraj joins Sundar in the middle with the scores level.
WICKET! Jasprit Bumrah c Smith b Woakes 0 (India 387-9)
Woakes replaces Carse from the Nursery End and Sundar scampers a single off the third ball to bring the scores level. The Indian fans make themselves known at Lord’s.
That’s a beauty! Woakes angles one in and shapes away, the ball kissing the edge of Bumrah’s bat and nestling safely in Jamie Smith’s gloves.
118th over: India 386-8 (Sundar 22, Bumrah 0) Archer tries to finish things off for England but is denied at first by Sundar who then takes a single off the fourth ball. Archer to Bumrah. Fire meets fire. Archer goes full and at the stumps for both but Bumrah of all people knows what he is up to and jams the bat down to dig them out. Just.
117th over: India 385-8 (Sundar 21, Bumrah 0) In comes Jasprit Bumrah with India trailing by two runs on first innings. Wonder how tempted the smiling assassin is to tread on his stumps and get out there for a couple of overs of fun this evening… penny for Zak Crawley’s thoughts.
What a mad little innings that was from Akash Deep – consisting of two overturned lbws in three balls, a pulled six off Jofra Archer and a diving one handed catch in the slips from Harry Brook.
WICKET! Akash Deep c Brook b Carse 7 (India 385-8)
Pouched on the dive at third slip by Harry Brook. Carse removes Akash Deep and England might find themselves batting this evening.
116th over: India 385-7 (Sundar 21, Akash Deep 7) Archer is roared in and greeted by…. an Akash Deep swivel pull for SIX! That’s some shot. Archer and England’s fielders share looks of incredulity.
115th over: India 378-7 (Sundar 21, Akash Deep 1) Two off Brydon Carse’s latest as India nearly haul themselves level. England’s lead is nine runs and a huge cheer goes around Lord’s as Jofra Archer is announced as coming on for a bowl.
114th over: India 376-7 (Sundar 20, Akash Deep 0) The crowd roar Woakes and there’s a loud groan as Akash Deep lets one go outside off stump. After all that, it was a (single) wicket maiden.
“I very much enjoyed A Different Man (with Adam Pearson and Sebastian Stan) on a flight recently. It’s bracingly odd and absolutely refuses to give you any of the pay offs you might expect from the set up.” Not now Tom Hopkins, Woakesy is on one!
Just to say I’ve now got film recco’s coming in thick and fast and it’s all going tonto at Lord’s! You have to laugh.
Rinse and repeat! Woakes scuds the next ball into Akash Deep and this time it hits him on the back leg! England go up, the umpire says OUT but the DRS says MISSING!
Chris Woakes and England think they have two in two as Akash Deep is pinned on the pad first ball! The Umpire says yes but DRS says…. NO – Missing leg stump!
WICKET! Ravindra Jadeja c †Smith b Woakes 72 (India 376-7)
A strangle from nowhere! Jadeja walks off after flicking an innocuous leg side ball from Woakes into the gloves off Jamie Smith! There is life at Lord’s!
113th over: India 376-6 (Jadeja 72, Sundar 20) A maiden to Brydon Carse.
112th over: India 376-6 (Jadeja 72, Sundar 20) Just a Sundar single off Woakes’ latest. All gone a bit flat at Lord’s. Anyone seen any good films recently?
111th over: India 375-6 (Jadeja 72, Sundar 19) After what seems like an eternity another over is eventually bolwed. Brydon Carse hammers away from around the wicket and after five dots pins Sundar low on the front pad. This looked very close to me but Stokes and Carse end up not going for the review. I know nuthin’*.
*be interested to see the replay though.
110th over: India 374-6 (Jadeja 72, Sundar 19) Woakes snakes through a maiden and there’s a delay whilst Jadeja gets someone to sit down behind the bowlers arm. Then there’s drinks. We’re on another go slow here at Lord’s at the moment.
109th over: India 374-6 (Jadeja 72, Sundar 19) Carse gets one to jag dramatically off the pitch and half a foot into Sundar’s pads but the appeal is stifled as it was heading down leg. Serious movement though, this pitch is going to start playing tricks in the last couple of days I’d wager. Three from the over, Chris Woakes has been summoned for the next over, India trail by just 13 runs.
108th over: India 371-6 (Jadeja 71, Sundar 17) Root is pongoed for another SIX, this time over extra cover and launched by Washington Sundar. The camera pans to Shoaib Bashir sat with the England subs on the boundary edge. All a bit curious.
107th over: India 365-6 (Jadeja 71, Sundar 11) Brydon Carse does indeed replace a red zoned Stokes. Close! Jadeja prods forward and an inside edge flies past the stumps and away for four! Lucky lad. Four more! a thick edge is angled past the cordon for another boundary and precious runs for the visitors.
106th over: India 352-6 (Jadeja 63, Sundar 10) India heading towards parity and then a useful lead… Jadeja chops Root away for four past point.
105th over: India 352-6 (Jadeja 59, Sundar 10) Stokes is into his seventh over… anyone else hear ticking in the background? Sundar cuts a wider ball away for four. England just have a thirty run lead to play with now. I think that will be the end of Stokes, Tim Southee, the bowing coach, came on at the end of the over with a drink and a wise word in the ear. That’ll do, Ben.
104th over: India 348-6 (Jadeja 59, Sundar 6) Jadeja dances down and donks Joe Root for SIX into the pavilion!
“Sitting here at Lord’s wondering if Joe Root is the best exponent of NINE of the first 26 overs with the new ball … I mean, there’s experimenting and doing the unexpected, but there’s also some professional quicks in this team.”
103rd over: India 340-6 (Jadeja 52, Sundar 5) Careful Benjamin… Stokes into his sixth over on the bounce. Stitches together a maiden to Sundar.
Andrew Benton is tuning in from Hong Kong:
“Hello James, England these days seem to be Ben Stokes plus some other people who help occasionally. Maybe AI could clone a team of Stokeses – we’d be well away.”
AI is coming for us all… particularly me, I’m screwed.
102nd over: India 340-6 (Jadeja 52, Sundar 5) Two more singles off Root, still no sign of Bashir. Time for some Carse or Archer I reckon.
101st over: India 338-6 (Jadeja 51, Sundar 4) Stokes rattles through the fifth over of this spell. It’s been full blooded stuff from England’s captain. The deficit is reduced to fifty with a clipped single from Jadeja.
“Afternoon Jimbo!” pipes up a perky Simon McMahon. “If Day 3 is moving day, I think there’s been an unfortunate delay, meaning that both these sides are still waiting to pick up their keys. They’re packed and ready to go, though. And Stokes is driving the van…”
100th over: India 336-6 (Jadeja 50, Sundar 3) England tick over the 100 over mark in sweltering North London (!) heat. Root continues. Shoaib Bashir is apparently going to come back on and be fit to bowl, that’s the official word.
“Oh for a Tuffnell or a Panesar” bemoans Matt Doherty. Let’s hope Bashir isn’t flicking through the OBO, with his good hand, during his time on the sidelines…
99th over: India 335-6 (Jadeja 50, Sundar 2) Stokes looks to the heavens after stitching together four dots to Jadeja and nearly snaking one past the bat and onto the pad with his final ball. That would have been stone dead and Stokes knows it.
98th over: India 334-6 (Jadeja 50, Sundar 1) Jadeja pings Root down the ground to go to nhis third consecutive fifty in this series. He gets crunch runs this fella. Root then beats him in the flight with the batter dancing down but the pace is slow enough for Jadeja to react and abort the big shot just in time.
97th over: India 330-6 (Jadeja 46, Sundar 1) Stokes is testing out the middle of the wicket, slamming the ball in and getting the crowd going. One ball to Jadeja lifts dramatically, there is life in this surface if one bends one’s back. It’s starting to grip a little for the spinners too.
96th over: India 328-6 (Jadeja 46, Sundar 0) Joe Root finds some turn and gets one to grip and rip past Sundar’s waft. It ends up in the hands of slip but there was not bat on it. India trail by 61, England would love a first innings lead, no matter how slight. Jadeja will have other ideas, we might see a few shots played in anger here after a quite few hours of compilation.
95th over: India 326-6 (Jadeja 44, Sundar 0) Stokes has his dander up after the wicket. Washington Sundar is the new batter, he can certainly play. The crowd at Lord’s come alive once more. Stokes bangs a few in short, hello Washington!
WICKET! Nitish Kumar Reddy c Smith b Stokes 30 (India 326-6)
Stokes gets Reddy with a snorter than lifts like a spitting cobra and takes the glove. Big wicket that for England!
94th over: India 326-5 (Jadeja 44, Reddy 30) The Root experiment continues, the ball is only 13 overs old… I’m not so sure about this Benjamin. Root drops short and is pan handled away by Jadeja through midwicket for four.
93rd over: India 322-5 (Jadeja 40, Reddy 30) Stokes starts from the Nursery End, flaxen hair slicked back and cheeks well and truly pinked. Reddy looks to punch a back of a length ball through cover and gets a meaty edge wide of the slips and away for four. The deficit is cut to 65 runs, if India tick them off then every run from then on England are sure to feel more sharply.
92nd over: India 317-5 (Jadeja 40, Reddy 26) Joe Root starts with the ball after tea… what’s all this about then? Galaxy brain thinking from Stokes or just facilitating a change of ends for Chris Woakes. Just a single added.
91st over: India 316-5 (Jadeja 40, Reddy 25) Two singles off Woakes see India to the tea break. It’s been intriguing cricket, not high octane – the odd nutty single notwithstanding – but the Test remains very much in the balance, the arm wrestle continues.
68 runs for one wicket off 25.3 overs this afternoon.
90th over: India 314-5 (Jadeja 39, Reddy 24) Reddy shakes off his Stokes inflicted headache like a cartoon character crunched by a dustbin lid. We’ll have one more from Woakes before it is cucumber sandwich time.
“Good afternoon everyone, listening in from Kuala Lumpur and delaying a jet lagged sleep in case England can get another wicket?!”
You get some shut eye John Dodsworth. We’ll give you a gentle nudge if anything happens…
OUCH! There’s a break in play at Lord’s as Stokes jags a short ball back into Nitish Kumar Reddy and it clonks him on the helmet. The batter looks fine to continue but his helmet jammed into his cheek so there’s a frozen bag of petit pois being applied.
89th over: India 311-5 (Jadeja 37, Reddy 23) The shackles are loosened a little as Reddy clips Woakes off his pads for four down to fine leg.
“Hello there James”
Greeting Rowan Tewari! Oh, he’s on an Donnie Downer. Shame.
“You feel if India lose this match and series, it’ll be due to a combination of self-inflicted wounds and naive captaincy from a young captain rather than the actual cricket on display from England. As much as I want this England team to defeat the Aussies, I’m still not fully convinced they’ll hold up based on the 3 test matches so far this summer.”
88th over: India 306-5 (Jadeja 36, Reddy 19) England have bowled tightly in the last hour, India have only bee going along at 2.5 an over for the last ten. Stokes replaces Archer from the Pavilion End. The England captain is tailor made for these moments, can he bust through into India’s tail? Not yet but it is another probing over, Jadeja steers for a couple past backward point to bring up the fifty partnership between this pair and a scampered single to long-on edges India another step closer to parity. It’s quietly enthralling cricket.
87th over: India 303-5 (Jadeja 33, Reddy 19) Jadeja pokes out in front of his pad to work Woakes into the off side for a single. A hint of movement and that is a risky stroke. Play and a miss! Reddy is lured into lunging at an outswinger from Woakes and nearly gifts his wicket away. The batter has a stern word with himself after that loose shot. Woakes strides back to his mark with real purpose, like a dad who knows the parking meter on his hatchback is about to expire. Beaten again! Woakes has a decent giddy-up going here, just a single off the over.
86th over: India 302-5 (Jadeja 32, Reddy 19) Archer stands hands on hips mid pitch after completing a sharp maiden to Reddy. Much like when Bumrah comes onto bowl, the atmosphere ratchets up a good few notches when Jofra has the ball in hand.
85th over: India 302-5 (Jadeja 32, Reddy 19) The Lord’s hum reverberates as Chris Woakes replaces Brydon Carse from the Nursery End. The Wizard lands it on a postage stamp on off stump, there’s another heart in mouth moment for India as Jadeja and Reddy stutter mid pitch before aborting a tight single. England have been good with the ball today but you can’t help but feel India are in a poorer position than they could be largely because of self inflicted wounds.
84th over: India 301-5 (Jadeja 32, Reddy 18) Archer is around the wicket, Jadeja flicks off the pads into the leg side for a single. Big appeal! A yorker slams low into Reddy’s pad but he had shuffled across and it was sliding down. England opt not to review and wisely so, they’ve been a lot more discerning with the DRS in this Test.
Update on Shoaib Bashir’s injured finger: He is being assessed by the medical team after taking a blow to his left little finger. We’ll get an update with the damage shortly.