TimesofIndia.com in London: Two days after reaching London from Birmingham, India and England will march out at the Lord’s cricket ground for the third Test starting today. While India have been training at the Home of Cricket for the last two days, the hosts had their first, and only, session before the game on July 9. In the first two fixtures, the pendulum has constantly swung from one team to another but India breaching the Edgbaston fortress gave them much-needed momentum ahead of the third game. The series is deliciously poised at 1-1 and a favourable result at Lord’s will not only give the winning team the lead, but a very important confidence booster before the break takes over. A lot is at stake and in this high-pressure fixture, momentum will remain the key word and Shubman Gill-led India are riding that after the emphatic win last week. Even in favourable batting conditions, India not only outbatted the opposition but outskilled them with the ball and are currently high in spirits before the big one. India vice-captain Rishabh Pant was asked about the short turnaround and even the youngster reiterated that momentum helps in such situations. “Definitely it’s a short turnaround, but like you said, when you have momentum on your side, you want that short turnaround,” said Pant on the eve of the third Test. “We are not thinking about it too much. It’s good for us to have the momentum, but eventually you’ve got to play good cricket. This team will play better, and will win eventually,” he added. Pant himself has been juggling between batting, wicketkeeping, leadership and then some Wimbledon in the day and a gala dinner in the night. He was the life of the event hosted by Yuvraj Singh at a luxury hotel in London on July 8 and even loosened his purse strings for a bid of 17,000 pounds. And in a few hours’ time, he sat for the pre-match press conference.
It was the usual bit — some one-liners, plenty of laughs and the improved maturity. The clarity with which he spoke on the side’s plans, team combination options, fresh reinforcement in the opposition and the stump mic chatter showed the boy has matured into a man. The members of Team India, who missed the first training, operated at full tilt and there was a batathon between the likes of KL Rahul, Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal as they just didn’t stop batting.
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The nets were changed, attacks were shuffled and when everything was done, Ryan ten Doeschate took Gill, Sai Sudharsan and Karun Nair to the artificial turf wicket where he fed them underarm deliveries. After the proper hit, the trio was looking at getting their repetitions in and the underarm deliveries or the regular throwdowns from a shorter distance allow the batters to get a nice feel of their middle and exercise control. The scoreline reads 1-1 but even England know India were very close to sealing the game in Headingley. They capitalised on their chances in Birmingham and would now hope the Birmingham momentum continues in London, and is even carried forward to Manchester.
