After the second day’s play, Umesh Yadav and Liam Dawson had said the bowlers would have to toil hard even on the third day on the MA Chidambaram pitch and one can say they were totally right in their assessment of the track as England bowlers worked hard throughout the day but with little success.
Led by a brilliant 199-run knock by KL Rahul, the hosts finished the day on 391 for 4 in reply to England’s first innings of 477 and England all-rounder Ben Stokes has admitted the bowlers are getting little help from the pitch. But at the same time, he took nothing away from KL Rahul and Karun Nair (71*), who added 161 runs for the fourth wicket to help the hosts grab the honors on third day.
Speaking at the post-day press conference, Stokes said:“We tried a lot but sometimes you’ve got to hold your hands up say they played really, really well during the partnership they had their throughout the day.”
Expressing his frustration, Stokes said:“Maybe we didn’t get the rewards we deserved. We changed fields, came around the wicket, over the wicket with the spin and Broady (Stuart Broad) ended up getting Kohli with a good bit of planned bowling and changing the angle he came around and over the wicket with and the change-ups. It’s nice to see the back of Kohli but unfortunately they had someone else there who managed to get in and get a big score for them.”
Stokes also expressed surprise over not getting the reverse swing from the third-day pitch.
“I think that’s probably been the most surprising thing, especially with how abrasive the surfaces have been. We’ve kept the ball in really good condition but they go really soft easily out here compared to the Kookaburra in Bangladesh where we managed to get quite a lot (of reverse swing). That’s something to do with it,” he said.
“It’s probably been a little bit of a shock we haven’t managed to find any, but as a seam unit we have done really well in trying to hold an end up and build some pressure,” he added.
England lost the last Test despite scoring 400 runs in the first innings and are facing a similar situation in Chennai too as the hosts are behind by just 86 runs and have six wickets in hand but Stokes seems confident of a turnaround on the fourth day. The all-rounder said the visitors will go out to finish the series on a high.
“The guys down the lower order have got to start again on a wicket that’s going to deteriorate,” he pointed out. “And we’ve got Rash who’s got some turn. Hopefully, we can toil away again like we did today and not give them a look-in at getting a lead.
“We don’t want to go away 4-0 or 3-0. We want to walk away with a win and go away with our heads held high. It all depends on how tomorrow goes I guess. If we can get out there, run through them in a session and go and put some runs on to put them under pressure that’s what we’ve got to try and do,” he concluded.