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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.
