Cheteshwar Pujara remained upbeat even as England neutralised India’s small first-innings lead and built their own on the third day of the Southampton Test, ensuring the visitors will be chasing well over 200 in the final innings.
England started their day at 6-0, still 21 runs in arrears in the second innings, but batted through the day, losing eight wickets and accumulating 254 runs. Consequently, at 260-8, they now have a 233-run lead over India, who were bowled out for 273 in the first innings.
“Looking at this pitch, I think it always slows down a bit, but we have played on such wickets in India that tend to slow down as the game progresses,” Pujara said. “And even the bounce is low, so most of our batters are used to such bounce and that could be in our favour in the second innings.”
However comfortable Pujara thinks it will be for India, they will still have to be wary of Moeen Ali, who picked up 5-63 in the first innings, including two wickets in two balls when he sent back Ashwin and Shami.
Pujara conceded that India could have played Ali better. “I think when he bowled in the first innings, the wicket was a little quicker and some of our batters could have batted a bit better,” he said.
“But he is a good bowler – I am not trying to take any credit away from the way he bowled, but we still should have batted better against him and in the second innings batters will have a better game plan against Moeen.”
