For the first time in the ongoing Test summer in England, featuring England, it felt like a Test match in England. Gloomy, overcast skies, green top, rain interruptions and the ball swinging and seaming around all day. India ended the day at 204/6, a position which India would be slightly happy with after being six down for just 153, while England would have hoped for a couple of more wickets, especially since the hosts might have lost the services of Chris Woakes, who dived on his left shoulder to save a boundary and injured it badly.
Scans will further dictate the severity of his injury, but England will hope to get the remaining four Indian wickets for as few runs as possible. It was a day, that belonged to Karun Nair, the dogged Indian domestic batter, who worked his way to a Test comeback after eight years, have starts but not a big score in the first three Tests. And when it looked like all was lost, Rishabh Pant's injury cropped up, a place for extra batter opened up on a green wicket and there was Nair, negotiating the movements and mischiefs of the ball amid the fall of wickets at regular intervals.
Another lost toss meant that India were batting on a green wicket first up. Both the openers, Yashasvi Jaiswal and KL Rahul, were dismissed cheaply. Gus Atkinson and Woakes accounted for their wickets, respectively before Sai Sudharsan applied himself nicely for a bit alongside Shubman Gill.
Following an extended lunch break, which started because of rain and ended after it was stopped, only six overs of play were possible before another heavy shower. However, India lost their skipper Gill in a moment of brainfade. Gill pushed for a non-existent run, committed fully before realising that his partner never left his crease, only to be caught short by Atkinson's accurate throw.
Josh Tongue, after a poor start, with wayward lines and lengths and being all over the place, finally found his channel and got the two left-handers in a quick period in the final session. India were suddenly half their side down and needed someone to just hold one end, which Nair did to perfection. He was solid in his defence, covered the line of the balls and when there were balls to be hit, he put them away.
Dhruv Jurel, unfortunately, was dismissed by Atkinson in the final session but the unbeaten fifty partnership between Nair and Washington Sundar would give the batters and the team a lot of relief. It won't be a high-scoring pitch but India will hope that they are able to bowl on this track once before it flattens out later on. Anything close to 300 would be a really good score on this pitch and that would be the aim for Nair, Sundar and Co.
