Until Thursday, Ben Stokes had opted to bat first on winning the toss only twice on English soil. On both those occasions, the home side courted defeat.
At Lord’s, the England skipper chose to buck the trend of this series, choosing not to field first. That wasn’t the only change from the norm. England swapped their gung-ho approach for a more traditional Test-match template on Day One of the third Test, looking to put big runs on the board and put India under scoreboard pressure.

On a slow surface that didn’t encourage unfettered stroke-making, England ground it out against a disciplined Indian attack which gave very little away. The bowlers were aided to some extent by the much-maligned Duke’s ball swinging for longer than usual despite a harsh sun beating down for most of the day as they ensured that even if wickets didn’t come in a hurry, the game didn’t get away from them.

As expected, Jasprit Bumrah replaced Prasidh Krishna from the XI that triumphed in Birmingham, but even though he beat Ben Duckett on both edges, he wasn’t firing on all cylinders. There was greater life from the Nursery End from where Akash Deep, the ten-wicket hero from the previous match, operated. Duckett and Zak Crawley made slow but measured progress in the first hour until Nitish Kumar Reddy was introduced after the drinks break and struck paydirt immediately.