The fate of this Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy will be sealed at The Oval on Sunday.
England need another 324 runs to pull off the second-biggest run chase in their history and win 3-1; India need eight wickets – or nine, in the improbable event that Chris Woakes walks out to bat one-handed – to square the series.
The draw is no longer on the table.
India are the favourites, and owe that status to four men: Yashasvi Jaiswal, who scored his sixth century, and the first of the match; Akash Deep, the nightwatcher whose maiden Test fifty wore England’s seamers down; Ravindra Jadeja, who passed 500 runs for the series; and Washington Sundar, whose late blitz took the target from 335 to 374 inside five overs.
England have been here before.
They chased 371 in the first Test of this series with five wickets in hand, and cruised to 378 against India at Edgbaston three years ago without breaking a sweat.
A punchy opening stand between Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett shaved 50 runs off the target as the shadows lengthened, and England will not be overawed by scoreboard pressure.
But Crawley’s dismissal in the final over of the day swung the pendulum firmly in India’s favour.
Yashasvi Jaiswal finds the gap past second slip•Aug 02, 2025•Getty Images
It was Mohammed Siraj, the last seamer standing in this series, who delivered a moment of high skill and high drama.
With two balls remaining, Siraj pushed Jaiswal back to deep square leg, a bluff to mask the searing 84mph/135kph yorker which followed, and crashed into off stump.
It will be a huge test of both teams’ character, skill and resilience as the series heads into its 24th – and surely final – day.
A draw would be a superb achievement for India under new leadership, not least from 2-1 down and on the ropes in Manchester; for England, a series win would be their first against a “big three” opponent under Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum.
In Woakes’ absence, this was a brutally tough day for their three greenhorn seamers, Gus Atkinson, Josh Tongue and Jamie Overton, who bowled 79 out of 88 overs between them in India’s second innings.
Ollie Pope did his best to rotate them but the workload was immense, particularly without a specialist spinner.
Their cause was not helped by six dropped catches, and India profited from their profligacy. (ESPNcricinfo)
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