England dig in against India to leave fourth Test in the balance after exhausting arm-wrestle of a day

England (246 & 260-8) lead India (273) by 233 runs: In the face of capitulation, with the score 92-4 shortly after lunch, England marked out their territory, dug in their heels, and fought

Jos Buttler scored a determined half-century (AP)

Often you will hear a period of Test cricket described as “one for the purists”, which most of the time is simply a delicately euphemistic way of saying it was a bit boring. By contrast, this enthralling, engrossing, enervating, exhausting arm-wrestle of a day was one of those rare gems whose appeal would nonetheless be utterly unfathomable to a non-native speaker. How, they would wonder, could we watch England and India duking it out for 88 gripping overs and still be no more capable of calling the result at its conclusion than we were at its commencement? But therein lies the evergreen beauty of Test cricket: sometimes, it manages to take you on an epic journey without seeming to go anywhere at all.

The bookmakers and the commentariat will maintain that England are clear favourites, having batted all day and eked out the sort of third-innings lead that generally wins low-scoring games. I wouldn’t be so sure. Barring a Sunday morning assault by England’s tail, a target of around 250 will hold few alarms for India’s blue-chip batting line-up. Scores of 300 and above have been chased down several times in the short history of this ground, and with the pitch slowing up, and a sunny weather forecast, India should find survival at least as easy as England’s middle-order did during their stirring evening fightback.

But take nothing away from England, who in the face of capitulation, with the score 92-4 – a lead of just 65 – shortly after lunch, marked out their territory, dug in their heels, and fought. The last 60 overs of the day produced just four wickets, as first Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler, and then Sam Curran later on, eked out runs as if casting them in their own blood. It was a wonderful battle of wills, a duel in the sun, the tension ratcheting with every scampered single, every ticking over. It was, in many ways, Test cricket as it was always meant to be: an examination of body and mind, technique and temperament, character and judgement.

Virat Kohli, right, celebrates the wicket of Keaton Jennings (Getty Images)

Occasionally, we could the toll with our own eyes. Wicket-keeper Rishabh Pant took a ball in the throat and promptly emptied the contents of his guts all over the Southampton outfield. Ishant Sharma was twice warned for running down the middle of the pitch, and yet with the prospect of expulsion hanging over him, still managed to charge in with the second new ball and dismiss Buttler, whose own tired flick betrayed the strain of three hours of blunt, unstinting resistance.

Must we talk about the top-order batting again? Must we? Probably, yes: if England do pull this off and clinch the series, then again England’s lower-order will have papered over the cracks in its top four, which while admittedly a little more resilient than it has been previously in this series, still left England precariously placed. Alastair Cook’s early dismissal surprisingly brought in Moeen Ali at No3, but to little meaningful effect. He played and missed at his first, third and 14th balls, edged his second, sixth and eighth, was hit by his 13th, and was out off his 15th.

Keaton Jennings got a promising start, only to squander it at 36, LBW on the stroke of lunch to Mohammed Shami. And in a way, it’s not so much his low scores but his unconverted starts that are throttling Jennings’s Test career. Getting to 20 four times this summer, and failing to convert on each occasion, suggests an essential brittleness, and the folly of his wicket was 40 minutes later, when Shami bowled Jonny Bairstow with his very next delivery.

Alastair Cook looks back to see Jasprit Bumrah take the catch (AFP/Getty Images)

So began the long road of resistance. Stokes scored just a single from his first 24 balls, walking down the pitch to the seamers, but otherwise demonstrating little intention beyond survival. Joe Root looked smooth enough, but after being pinned down on 48 for five overs, Stokes called him through for a quick single, and Shami threw down the stumps with Root two inches out of his ground.

Root often struggles to sleep, and perhaps a long period of stasis had sent him into an impromptu mid-afternoon nap. He hadn’t even expected the throw to come to his end. A dive would have saved him. A quicker response would have saved him. A full-on sprint would have saved him. Not taking the run at all would have saved him. Stokes going to prison would have saved him. As Root stalked off the field contemplating these other futures, blood rushing to his brain, the rage scorching through him like a house fire, the thought struck that poor form and poor luck are sometimes largely indistinguishable from each other.

His opposite number, meanwhile, was having a curious sort of day. Virat Kohli is one of those men who captains by feel, but as Stokes and Buttler got comfortable, his golden touch seemed to have deserted him. There were strange field placings – only two slips for Stokes on 0, for example. Strange bowling choices – not bringing on Hardik Pandya until the 66th over, keeping Ravi Ashwin on for 22 straight overs when he posed little threat, with only the wicket of Stokes to show for his 35 overs. Strange reviews – a fatuous punt on a caught behind shout against Buttler when even Pant seemed only barely interested.

Joe Root dug in through the morning session (AP)

Then there was exceptionally strange decision to delay the second new ball, even though the game was starting to drift, and then handing it straight to Ashwin. When it finally found itself in the rightful hands of Sharma, he trapped Buttler immediately: a flick and a miss, and Sharma was up in an instant: hair flapping, arms flapping, a roar as Kumar Dharmasena raised the finger.

There was one more twist in this dramatic day: Adil Rashid, caught behind off its final ball to give India a big sniff going into day four. Curran remains in situ, having reined himself in admirably early on before raising the tempo after Buttler’s departure. As England resume on Sunday, it is Curran who remains their best hope of carving out a match-winning lead. Enough already? For England, not nearly enough for comfort.