India vs England 2021: India can still manage to win the 3rd test match. Here is how? Day 3 Preview

 

    Yes, you read it right!. India can still manage to win this 3rd Test match at Headingley, Leeds.

    After a two days of dominance from England at the first Innings where India tumbled over for 78 after winning the toss and followed by England putting up a huge lead of 354 runs everyone got into an assumption that it is going to be a cakewalk win for England by an innings or matter of chasing very short target at the second innings. But, the pitch and Indian batters had different ideas. Whatsoever, the start of Day 3 was really good for India as they removed the tail enders quickly. As the day progress, when KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma came to the crease(2nd Innings) it was very difficult for them to face the England pacers with the new ball as a result showed in the Run rate which was below 2 and at 19th over Rahul nicked one of Overton to Bairstow, he managed to score 8 of 54 balls. Followed by Rohit and Pujara added 80 run partnership between them until 48th over where a worst decision by Richard Rettleborough(Field umpire) caused Rohit sharma's wicket and there comes an Indian Captain who struggled initially and went on to add up 45 runs of 94 balls along with a special mention to the so called "out of form" Pujara who added 91 runs of 180 balls, it was an cracker of an innings to shut the mouth of people who were complaining about his form. Virat and Pujara added up 99 runs partnership at the end of Day 3.

It's Stumps on Day 3 of the 3⃣rd #ENGvIND Test at Headingley!

A solid & gritty batting display by #TeamIndia to end the day at 215/2. 👍

9⃣1⃣* for @cheteshwar1
5⃣9⃣ for @ImRo45
4⃣5⃣* for captain @imVkohli

Scorecard 👉 https://t.co/FChN8SDsxh pic.twitter.com/6gisdY7PXi

— BCCI (@BCCI) August 27, 2021

    Coming to the point "How India can still manage to win". Back in 2002, where in the likes of Dada, Dravid & Sachin which is called as "Golden Era of Indian Cricket" at the same venue Headingley where Indian batsman's managed to score a huge 628 for a loss of 8 wickets in the 1st innings and won by an innings and 46 runs. Of course, one could not say it is similar kind of situation. However, I can say some similarities comparing these two as the openers Sanjay Bangar made 68 runs of 236 balls and Virender Sehwag lost his wicket for 8 runs followed by Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Gangully each with three digit scores of 148(307b), 193(330b) and 128(167b) respectively. At the end of 1st innings, India declared at 628 with the loss of 8 wickets. England tumbled for 273  at the first innings, India enforced follow-on and managed to take another 10 wickets for just 309 in the board and won by an innings and 46 runs. 

    Taking the positives, it looks similar when we compare both the innings as Pujara is 9 runs short for his century and Kohli also looks good. Having said that, if India manages to bat on Day 4 completely and put a descent lead. Then the Day 5 would be very excited to watch as same as the second test at lords.

Will hope for nothing but the best ✌

    

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India vs England 3rd Test match- Virat Kohli's batting Woes continues. Sunil Gavaskar has his say on "What Virat needs to do next?"

 

    Over and over again Virat Kohli nicks the ball that bowled outside off stump. The entire cricket fraternity is so disappointed on the way Virat Kohli gives his wicket, everyone is on top of his head like "Where is the old Virat?" "Bring back the 2018 show".

    Whatsoever, we all know he is a champion player and one day very very soon he is going to break all these talks with his bat as he always does. Not to forget the legend's 2014 red ball stats(India tour of England) where he scored only 134 runs in 10 innings with the highest score of 39 which is still now considered as his very bad overseas outings than the any other. And followed by India tour of England 2018 where the Veteran batsman scored 593 runs in 10 innings with the highest score of 149 . However, India lost the series by 4-1 margin to England but no one can ever say a word on Virat's best comeback performance especially at the English soil after the 2014 nightmare.

    As usual, the experts have lots of different point of views on Virat Kohli's current form. However, Sunil Gavaskar's words stands top of all as he said Virat to call up Sachin Tendulkar to ask "What I need to do next". Uff, I got a goosebumps after analyzing "Why he said like that?". Before going in depth into it let me put up the Gavaskar's statement:

    "VIRAT KOHLI SHOULD GIVE A QUICK CALL TO SACHIN TENDULKAR AND ASK 'WHAT SHOULD I DO?'. HE SHOULD DO WHAT TENDULKAR DID AT SYDNEY. SAY TO HIMSELF THAT I AM NOT GOING TO PLAY THE COVER DRIVE ".

    Back in 2004, our own God of Cricket "Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar" also had the same woes as the current Indian captain going through. The legend was also nicking the ball bowled outside off stump and throwing his wicket again and again in the same fashion back on "India tour of Australia 2004".

All this was until fourth test at Sydney of the same tour where the God went on to score a double century 241(436b) followed by an unbeaten 60(89b). As mentioned by Gavaskar, Sachin decided not to play the cover drive which actually gave him the thriving result. In fact, Sachin himself said in the post match presentation  "I had got out a couple of times to balls bowled outside the off stump. So, I decided not to play the cover drive. They were bowling consistently outside the off stump and I decided to leave all those balls".

Here is the Video of the tour,

@imVkohli today I watched this https://t.co/Y0Cr13oLww video we love yours cover drive but this time we don't need cover drive we need our 2016 @imVkohli please comeback soon with strongly#INDvsEND #beast #Master #WTC23

— Short Life (@masterlife225) August 26, 2021

    And yes, that's what Virat Kohli has to follow to get out of this bad form. Of course, he is without a century for the past 50 innings, his last century was on 2019 and not to forget the fact that he has good double digit scores across the format even in his so called "Bad phase" that's the standard he sets for himself. Remember, MSD( Predecessor of Kohli) used to say "Form is a state of mind". Just a change in mindset could bring the most awaited 71st Century for the Indian Captain. We can say the whole cricket fraternity is waiting to see Virat Kohli's celebration after the Century. Likewise Sachin, even Dhoni had his bad phase particularly with captaincy in which he was known for his best. Back in 2016, where the legend had a very bad IPL season ever with Rising Pune Supergiants(RPS) finish the tournament at the bottom of the table followed by 2017 where the legend got sacked from captaincy by RPS management. But can you put an end card to Captain Dhoni like that. Of course, the answer is NO as he joined back CSK at 2018 and won the trophy like a Boss.

    "Once a champion, Always a champion". With all the things said, it's time for the legend to give a comeback and 👇

    

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India vs England 3rd Test match predicted XI.... Ashwin replaces....

INDIA VS ENGLAND 3rd TEST MATCH- Predicted playing XI

    After the historic win at Lord's on the second test match. Both the teams are very furious to meet each other in the next at Headingley. We have already witnessed all the banters between the two teams at Lord's where England batters lost their patience and gifted their wickets to the fab-four pace attack of Indians. We cannot expect the best but the beast game coming to us live on August 25, 2021 at 3.30 PM.

    Adding fuel to the fire, the pre-match word games are already started between the two teams and on the other side cricket experts are very curious about the playing XI of India. As the debate continues on Ashwin's exclusion from the squad despite of good performances on the past in the same English soil(World Test championship final and County Championship). Here is our predicted XI for the third test match.

1. Rohit Sharma
2. KL Rahul
3. Cheteshwar Pujara
4. Virat Kohli(C)
5. Ajinkya Rahane
6. Rishabh Pant(WK)
7. Ravindra Jadeja
8. Ravichandran Ashwin
9. Jasprit Bumrah
10. Mohammed Siraj
11. Mohammed Shami.

Ashwin is more likely to feature in the playing XI as the Headingley pitch in Leeds looks to be dry also the weather looks to be good, having said that it can assist spinners a bit. This sums up as the above playing XI could be the best for a win at Headingley for Team India.

Turning the heat 🔥🔛 at Headingley 🏟️💪🏻#TeamIndia 🇮🇳 | #ENGvIND pic.twitter.com/cxNjZFIqh0

— BCCI (@BCCI) August 22, 2021

 Some Pics of Indian players sweat it out during training(Source: BCCI)

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