Joe Root's partnership with tailenders helps England put up a good show

Indian seamers, led by Ishant Sharma, pegged England back with some incisive seam and swing bowling reducing the hosts to 352 for nine at stumps to gain the advantage on the third day of the first Test at Nottingham. England are currently 105 runs behind India's first innings score of 457 with two days of play remaining.

At stumps, Joe Root (78) was battling it out in company of last man Jimmy Anderson (23) having added 54 runs for the unbroken stand. England were in a comfortable position at 131 for one with youngsters Gary Ballance (71) and Sam Robson (59) helping themselves to half centuries. However, the innings turned in the post-lunch session as they lost six wickets for only 74 runs.

While it was Ishant (3/109), who rocked the top-order with three quick dismissal, Bhuvneshwar Kumar's (4/61) controlled swing bowling decimated the lower-middle order despite a couple of debatable decisions going in home team's favour. The third pacer of the troika, Mohammed Shami (2/98) added a scalp to his tally, when he had Moeen Ali caught at firstslip.

England redeemed themselves in the final session from a precarious 205 for seven thanks to Root's responsible effort with the tailenders that got them 147 runs in the final sessionwith the loss of onlytwowickets. Apart fromhis stand withAnderson, Root also shared a 78-run eighth wicket partnership with all-rounder Stuart Broad who smashed 47 off 42 balls, including nine fours.

While England scored 309 runs in 89 overs of play possible on the day, credit must be given to the Indian seamers for themannerinwhichtheymadethemost on a lifeless trackwhere the ball did not do much for the better part of the day.

The pitch remained slow and unresponsive throughout the day. Even so the Indian seamers got much more out of it by bowling a straighter line than their English counterparts. While Indian batsmen defended 288 balls from English seamers and left 257 balls alone, the English, bystumps, had defended 175 balls and only left 87 alone. The spell by Ishant in the post-lunch session was one of the best he has bowled in recent times— getting movement off the pitch on both sides in a nippy spell.

While Robson may feel hard done as there was an insideed geto the incoming delivery, the ones he bowled to get lefthander Ballance and seasoned Ian Bel(25)reminded all of his Australian spells during the 2007-08 series.