Key events
66th over: India 252-4 (Rahul 99, Jadeja 3) Shoaib Bashir completes the over he started before lunch. Rahul whips a single to move to 99 before Ravindra Jadeja, who has moved up to No6 to maintain the left/right-hand combination, works his first ball classily through midwicket for three.
“If we’re using music analogies, ok for Rahul/Eno, but I’d go more with Another Green World than Ambient 1: Music for Airports,” says Jeremy Boyce. “The latter is tedious and soporific, whereas the former is all smooth and dreamy with rhythm. As for Pant, I’m more inclined towards The Velvet Underground’s Sister Ray, an anarchic smash-up that we used back in the day to clear our student flat when guests overstayed their welcome. You just couldn’t live with it, much like the man himself.”
“Brilliant from Stokes,” says Joshua Keeling. “Crazy from Pant to go for that single there, just to get Rahul on strike before lunch! Needless risk to take when India were well on top.”
It did feel like the main motivation was to get Rahul on strike so he could reach his century before lunch. But with Rishabh in particular you can never be completely sure why something happens.
Lunchtime reading
This piece from Barney Ronay on the 75th anniversary of one of the great Lord’s Tests is just brilliant.
That run-out gets better every time you see it. As he picked up his body was facing the stumps at the striker’s end, but without breaking stride he calculated that Pant was struggling at the other end. Then, in one smooth movement, he swivelled round and detonated the stumps with a fantastic throw.
Ben Stokes averages 35 with the bat and 32 with the ball in Tests. Moments like this are why – in my opinion and that’s all it is, this isn’t a judicial review – he is England’s greatest ever cricketer.
Lunch
65.3 overs: India 248-4 (Rahul 98 not out) It’s still India’s session – 103 for 1 in 22.3 overs – but that’s a priceless wicket for England. Stokes, who has been unusually animated at times in the series, screamed with hard-faced delight when the replay confirmed that Pant was short of his ground.
Stokes does this all the time. I would bet the farm that, had the game been drifting, his throw would have missed the stumps. But as the stakes get higher and his team’s need becomes desperate, so Stokes’s brain forms different neural pathways that allow him to do things like that. It’s happened way too often to be coincidence.
A stunning moment on the stroke of lunch. Pant dropped Bashir on the off side and tried to steal a single to get Rahul, 98 not out, back on strike. Stokes swooped, processed which end to throw to in a millisecond and swivelled to batter the stumps at the non-striker’s end. That is quite brilliant.
WICKET! India 249-4 (Pant run out 74)
Ben Stokes has done it again! Not with the ball this time, but in the field.
65th over: India 247-3 (Rahul 97, Pant 74) Pant hooks Stokes towards fine leg, where Crawley does brilliantly to save the six by leaping backwards over the rope to take the catch and then getting rid of the ball before he hits the floor.
Does that go down as a dropped catch? I guess so, but there was nothing more Crawley could have done without a stepladder.
Earlier in the over Pant placed a superb cut for four. He’s getting away from England, and that means so are India.
Lunch, which is an over away, will come at a good time for England, whose lead is down to 140.
“I have a friend who was a Surrey member many moons ago,” begins John Swan. “And he swears he witnessed Jack Richards take a stumping standing up… To Sylvester Clarke of all people.
“Apparently it was pure reflex (natch) and not at all elegant, but, you know, who cares?”
How was Jack Richards still conscious after telling Sylvester Clarke he was going to stand up to him? (At the risk of killing yet more joy, I don’t think it happened – I scanned Clarke’s list of wickets for Surrey and couldn’t see anything.)
64th over: India 240-3 (Rahul 96, Pant 69) One from Bashir’s over.
63rd over: India 240-3 (Rahul 96, Pant 68) Stokes attacks Rahul with the short ball from around the wicket. No matter: Rahul gets on top of the ball and helps it round the corner for four. He’s playing as if the ball is coming down at 0.5x.
India took their time to get going but they’ve scored 81 in the last 13 overs. That’s a huge problem for England with the second new ball still 17 overs away.
“This series for Woakes reminds me of Anderson two years ago: not bowling badly, but not looking threatening,” says Jeremy Smith. “Might be playing himself out of an Ashes tour?”
Possibly, although paradoxically Australian conditions have been more English than England in recent years. I suspect he’ll go in an enlarged squad, almost as an unofficial player-coach.
62nd over: India 233-3 (Rahul 91, Pant 66) Shoaib Bashir’s first ball of the day is driven straight down the ground for six by Pant – nothing wild or inelegant, just a beautiful shot to put Bashir under pressure right from the start.
Though England have been flat, the story of this morning session is the quality of Rahul and Pant’s batting. Rahul’s control percentage must be close to 100 per cent today.
61st over: India 224-3 (Rahul 90, Pant 58) Stokes sits Pant down with a superbly directed bouncer; then there’s a cry of “caaaaaaaatch” before a lap-pull bounces short of the fielder at third man. This is excellent from Stokes, who has always been so good at making things happen with the old ball when his team are up against it.
“KL Rahul as the Ambient 1: Music for Airports of Test batters – I see a theme here,” writes Mark Hooper. “Pant as Trout Mask Replica?”
Hahaha. I think Dinesh Karthik described their partnership as hip hop at one end and classical music at the other, but I love the idea of specific albums. Probably not enough to actually to listen to any Beefheart, but I love the comparison.
60.1 overs: India 222-3 (Rahul 89, Pant 57) Pant is again hit on the finger, which means another break in play. This Lord’s Test will go down in history as the moment everyone stopped tolerating pitiful over-rates. Cricket is no longer accepting nonsense.
60th over: India 221-3 (Rahul 89, Pant 56) Pant tries to pull Carse towards Camden Market, misses and shouts angrily at himself. He tries again later in the over and toe-ends a pull that bounces just short of Stokes in the deep.
And then it’s back to Brian Eno. Rahul makes room to guide a beautiful cut stroke for four off Carse. This is a clinic. Boycott, Ponsford, Gavaskar, Sutcliffe: all the great classical openers would have been bursting with pride had they played this innings.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll almost certainly repeat myself in the future, but I’d like Rehan Ahmed in this side ahead of Bashir and I don’t care who knows it. Better with the bat, more wicket taking deliveries and won’t get smacked around any more. Innit.”
You realise Rehan didn’t bowl a ball in Leicestershire’s last Championship game? (He did make a century, which is another conversation.) I think England have only two serious alternatives – and one idle fantasy – for this series and especially the Ashes:
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Five seamers plus Joe Root
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Liam Dawson
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Ask Adil Rashid to bowl himself into retirement, bring them home and cement his place as a giant of English cricket
I’d choose 1 and 2, mixing and matching depending on the pitches in Australia. Don’t have time to articulate my largely derivative reasoning but am available for iced lattes and cricket chat. One key point is that Australia will try to marmalise England’s spinner, whoever it might be, so Dawson’s white-ball expertise becomes relevant.
59th over: India 215-3 (Rahul 84, Pant 55) Surely now, after that painful blow, Pant will stop taking on the short ball. Schyeah right: he hooks Stokes meatily over long leg for six to bring up a mischievous, determined and quietly courageous fifty.
That’s Pant’s 87th six, which puts him one behind Rohit Sharma and three behind Virender Sehwag on the all-time India list.
58.2 overs: India 207-3 (Rahul 83, Pant 48) A bouncer from Stokes to Pant is called wide, bringing up a timely, high-class century partnership.
Stokes gets the line spot on later in the over, with Pant pinned on the glove as he tries to pull. That hurt his bad finger and he’s called the physio on.
58th over: India 206-3 (Rahul 83, Pant 48) Carse and England go the short-ball ploy, something that worked so well on a similarly slow Lord’s pitch against Australia two years ago. Pant’s first response is a reverse pull for a single – “this bloke is brilliant,” says the Sky commentator Ian Ward – and then Rahul makes room to flat bat a boundary between mid-off and extra cover. Great shot.
In his own quiet way, Rahul is playing a magnificent innings. I can barely recall a false shot. He’s the Ambient 1: Music for Airports of Test batters.
“Are there better examples of wicketkeepers changing the game?” says Adam Foster. “Gilchrist defined the modern keeper, but it feels like Smith and Pant are the evolution. Perhaps also saving Test cricket in the meantime…falling over ramp clearly designed for TikTok memes.”
Gilchrist is the ultimate but you make a great point about memes and making Test cricket accessible. The scale of their run-scoring is also, if not unprecedented for a wicketkeeper (hello Andy Flower), then certainly unusual. In fact, Smith and Pant have already broken the record for runs by wicketkeepers in any Test series: 796 at 114 as I type.
57th over: India 200-3 (Rahul 78, Pant 47) Ben Stokes replaces Chris Woakes, who bowled an accurate spell of 6-2-17-0. Pant charges down and hacks to Brook at short midwicket; some of the ground thought it was a catch but Pant had dragged the ball into the ground before it bounced up.
The drinks break is followed by another delay while the ball is changed. Sky Sports’ Ian Ward is chuntering away, wondering why this didn’t happen during the drinks break rather than after.
The remaining tolerance for slow over-rates and constant delays has evaporated during this Test.
Why is Pant allowed to bat?
“I might be a bit slow as I’m nursing a hangover and am struggling to see,” begins Damian Burns, “but can someone explain why Pant is allowed to play when he’s essentially had the whole match off up to now?”
The laws are different for external and internal injuries. Pant’s injury is covered by Law 24.3
24.3 Penalty time not incurred
A nominated player’s absence will not incur Penalty time if,
24.1.3 he/she has suffered an external blow during the match and, as a result, has justifiably left the field or is unable to take the field.
24.1.4 in the opinion of the umpires, the player has been absent or has left the field for other wholly acceptable reasons, which shall not include illness or internal injury.
Drinks: Excellent first hour for India
56th over: India 197-3 (Rahul 76, Pant 46) A maiden from Carse to Pant, who is still grimacing after most deliveries due to his finger injury. His audacious brilliance is so compelling that it’s easy to loose sight of how courageous a performance this has been: he’s faced 78 balls, which means 78 jolts of pain through his hand.
That’s drinks. It’s been India’s first hour and no mistake. England need to stick in for another 23 overs, ideally picking up one or two mistakes, and then choose a very good second new ball.
56th over: India 197-3 (Rahul 76, Pant 46) “Nice to see some admiring light being shed upon Bumrah’s off-bail clipping nip-backer,” writes Robert Wilson. “I’m fond of those. We all are. It’s the apex of clean-bowled excellence, a mix of sociopathic superbity, carnivorous malice and a sniper’s thoroughgoing cold-bloodedness. There have been many deft practitioners before Bumrah (Brett Lee’s interpretation was chillingly cruel – he eviscerated Flintoff with a memorable one that Freddie would never have laid a bat on if he had spent the rest of his career trying). But Bumrah does it more than anyone I remember.
“What makes it unbearable for the snakebit batsman is the unmistakable mockery contained, the absolutely understood sous-entendu that the batter is a bit of a chump. I know this because of the two occasions I remember Gladstone Small doing it. Small was a notoriously sweet-natured and gentlemanly figure. But both times he did it, he actually tittered. It was like seeing Eeyore cackling in sadistic glee. That’s gonna leave an indelible mark on someone’s soul.”
If you have a spare hour, better still a day, go down a Malcolm Marshall rabbit hole on YouTube. Still the most skilful fast bowler I’ve seen, though Bumrah makes me doubt that on occasion. Old Trafford 1988 is a good place to start – England prepared a spinning pitch for the West Indies’ quicks, so Marshall routed them for 93 with pure skill.
54th over: India 192-3 (Rahul 76, Pant 41) Another Sky graphic shows that Carse’s pace is a fair way down on the first two Tests. No great surprise, but it’s something for England to watch and the feeling persists that they could be smarter with the rotation of the quick bowlers.
Rahul tucks into Carse with three successive boundaries, two flicks through midwicket sandwiching a cracking back cut. Poor bowling but quite masterful batting.
This morning session is an arm wrestle within an arm wrestle within an arm wrestle.
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Nine runs from the first over
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Five runs from the next six
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Thirty-three from the last four
53rd over: India 180-3 (Rahul 64, Pant 41) The sudden flurry of runs continues with Pant charges Woakes and scorches the ball whence it came for four. It was in the air but, yeah, good luck touching that never mind catching that.
Stokes is tinkering constantly with his field, trying to make something happen. We’re fast approaching the England-need-a-wicket stage.
52nd over: India 174-3 (Rahul 64, Pant 35) Carse on for Archer, who bowled an accurate if slightly muted spell of 4-1-12-1. He concedes 10 from an unusually scruffy over, included a sweetly timed push through mid-on for four by Rahul. Carse ended well with a sharp nipbacker that hit Rahul high on the leg.
51st over: India 164-3 (Rahul 58, Pant 32) Pant scores the first run off the bat in almost five overs. then, next ball, Rahul glides Woakes for his first boundary of the day. I wonder who Ben Stokes would choose if he was offered a wicket right now. Pant is the obvious choice but Rahul looks like he could go all week.
“Not sure we can have all this wicket-keeper-standing-up malarkey without revisiting Jack Russell stumping Dean Jones off Gladstone Small,” writes Pete Salmon. “The absolute classic of the genre. Note, I did mean to send this about ten minutes ago, but just typing ‘Jack Russell standing up’ into YouTube took me down a rabbit hole that was almost as compelling as the cricket video.”
That stumping was good that England dropped him for the next Test in Adelaide.
50th over: India 159-3 (Rahul 54, Pant 31) A Sky graphic confirms that Archer’s average speed is around 3mph lower than yesterday. In the circumstances that’s fine, especially as he was probably faster than we expected yesterday when his average speed was 89.6mph.
Archer switches to the short-ball ploy but it’s not a great over, with his line or length awry. Only the last ball was on the money; KL Rahul swayed smartly out of the way. He even managed to make that look elegant.
“Stirring preamble but, unlike Tim de Lisle yesterday, no reference to Paul Simon lyrics!” writes Brian Withington. “So the following is a purely gratuitous follow up to yesterday’s adaptation of ‘Boy in the Bubble’ to ‘Ben and the Bazball’, but this is a lift from the title track
St John’s Wood Road was heaving with guys all dressed the same
We are following the road from the Tube to the cradle of the summer gameWe’re going to Lord’s Ground, Lord’s Ground, home of MCC
We’re going to Lord’s GroundRich boys and members with silly ties
And we are going to Lord’s GroundMy traveling companion is nine years old
And this will be his first time
He’s never been before to the game of WGWe’re going to Lord’s Ground, Lord’s Ground, home of MCC
We’re going to Lord’s Ground
49th over: India 158-3 (Rahul 54, Pant 31) Pant tries to reverse lap Chris Woakes and is beaten on the inside. It looks a bit daft, typical Pant, but Nasser Hussain points out that he’s played that shot many times and it was on because England had nobody at third.
That’s also – pick this segue out – the third maiden in a row. Dot by dot, the pressure is building.
48th over: India 158-3 (Rahul 54, Pant 31) Archer’s pace is down slightly on yesterday; that’s natural and nothing to worry about. He’s still bowling just shy of 90 mph, which allied to his relentless accuracy makes him the bowler India will least want to face. Rahul, happy to see Archer out of the attack, plays out a maiden with his usual defensive excellence.
There have been many more eyecatching performances in this series, but KL Rahul’s batting – the Louvre-worthy cover drives, the tempo, the defensive technique – has been a recurring joy. He’s a gift to the game.
47th over: India 158-3 (Rahul 54, Pant 31) Jamie Smith is standing up to the stumps when Woakes bowls to Pant. That tactic keeps 99.94 per cent of batters in their crease. Pant is the 0.06 per cent; he dances down to one delivery, albeit ultimately to defend.
Smith then moves back for a couple of deliveries during an uneventful but intriguing maiden over. This is the chess match Sam Charlton spoke about his in his earlier email.
“There will be a special intensity to today’s play as both teams vie for control, of the match, and the series,” says Jeremy Boyce. “Brilliant. It’s a bit of a Grandstand day, what with the women’s final at Wimbledon, the Lions in action down under, the Tour de France in full swing and more decisive action at the Women’s Euros this evening. Some serious multi-tasking in prospect.
“And it really is a day when you can imagine anything is possible, given that Wales have already done a win in a rugby match to end their loooooong losing streak. Better still, we’ve got rain forecast this afternoon and I’ve already done my bike ride, so I’ve got every excuse to stay indoors and soak it all up.”
46th over: India 158-3 (Rahul 54, Pant 31) The first inspection of the ball comes after only 13 deliveries. Archer sniffs when he’s told to continue with the current ball, then sends down a sharp lifter that is fenced through the vacant backward short leg area by Rahul. The resulting single brings up an important fifty partnership inside 13 overs.
There’s an occasional bit of extra bounce but no sideways movement whatsoever. England have another 34 overs of old-ball toil ahead.
45th over: India 155-3 (Rahul 53, Pant 29) Chris Woakes starts at the other end. Fair enough, given his seniority, but it must have been tempting to ask Brydon Carse to target Pant’s injured finger.
Pant takes a single first ball, KL Rahul defends the rest. He was immaculate yesterday, his bat the size of a panelboard.
Thanks to Pete Haining for the TMS overseas link. We do have a guide somewhere, kindly sent in during the second Test, but I can’t find it.
44th over: India 154-3 (Rahul 53, Pant 28) A statement of intent from Pant, who, sore finger or not, hits two boundaries in Archer’s opening over. The first was tucked fine, a fairly routine shot; the second was classic Pant, whirled over the off side on the charge.
Pant is struggling with his finger so he may decide to be even more attacking than usual. Imagine.
Here we go. The first over could be a bit dull: Jofra Archer to Rishabh Pant.
“The preamble from Ali exemplifies why I will always be happy to pay for a Guardian subscription,” writes Sam Charlton. “I don’t think the balance could be better put, 51/49 in England’s favour at the mid-point of the series.
“Proponents/detractors of Bazball miss the point. Test Cricket is meant to be a hard fought contest, a chess match between the best players in each country. This is what we have seen so far in all the Tests and it’s been thoroughly enjoyable.
“Test cricket is a long way from its death and this series shows why.”
I have nothing to add, profound or otherwise, save to reiterate the bleedin’ obvious: a five-Test series is the greatest format in any sport. It’s unimprovable.
It’s another scorcher at Lord’s, with the temperature around 30 degrees and the only gusts of wind coming when somebody plays and misses in the nets. England’s five-man attack – who all have a question mark of some kind against them – have a day of hard yakka ahead. Even if England take a first-innings lead, which is somewhere between feasible and probable, they’re unlikely to run through India on this slow Lord’s pitch.
Read Barney Ronay on Jasprit Bumrah, a man so familiar with his own genius that he barely celebrates wickets any more.
There’s a glide and a gather and a self-catapult through the crease, ending in the follow-through with Bumrah’s right hand slapping his own buttocks between his legs. It is of course no surprise that growing up in Ahmedabad he was at first unable to break into the age-group teams due to the self-made oddity of this action. Equally unsurprising, it didn’t last long.
Above all Bumrah is just a super-smart cricketer, a sponge for information, a student of lines and angles, always in control, jarringly happy in his work, and more muscled now in his pomp, with the look of the handsome contented man in a barber shop window advert.
I don’t know who writes Jofra Archer’s scripts, but I’m glad the great Andy Bull wrote about Jofra’s who-writes-your-scripts-moment
Archer at the end of his run is one of the great sights of English sport. Even when he is standing still, idly tossing the ball from one hand to the other, the atmosphere around him is alive with anticipation of the movements he is about to make, the latent threat of his pace, and the ever-present possibility of imminent violence.
Ali Martin’s day two report
The over rate was pathetic and the heat oppressive yet every spectator in Lord’s was transfixed. Nothing stirs the senses quite like high-quality pace bowling and so it proved here, be it the latest five-wicket display of Jasprit Bumrah’s mastery in the morning or Jofra Archer striking third ball on his comeback.
Archer first, and a moment that will live long in the memory for both the player and his supporters in the stands. As India closed on 145 for three in reply to 387 all out, his figures read a tidy one for 22 from 10 overs. And yet the numbers told only part of the story, with that solitary wicket, one that stopped everyone in their tracks and triggered an eruption of noise around NW8, unquestionably the moment of the day.
Preamble
Michael Atherton – former England captain, Sky commentator, cricket correspondent of Rival Newspaper – has a brilliant analogy to describe the rhythm of a four- or five-match Test series. “A lengthy Test series can be likened to an arm wrestle,” he tweeted in 2021. “You have a struggle for a short while but it often ends with one team completely flattened.”
On the morning of Saturday 12 July 2025, England and India were at the peak of that struggle: 1-1 in the series, with a persuasive case for either team being slightly ahead in the third Test. At the end of an unyielding second day’s play, the memory of which will surely make Jofra Archer smile for the rest of his natural-born days, India were 145 for 3 in reply to England’s 387.
The third day of a Test is known as moving day (unless Team B are 94 for 8 in reply to Team A’s 672 for 2 declared, in which case there’s nothing much to move). Today isn’t any old moving day. It’s the midpoint of a heavyweight contest: the third day of the third Test in a five-Test series that is level at 1-1. Moving day in the series, never mind the Test.
Chances are that, by 6.30pm, when 74 more overs have been bowled, one team will have an indisputable advantage. But right now, a compelling Test series could not be more perfectly poised.
