India’s decision not to declare towards the end of the day at Lord’s encapsulated a day which had largely drifted by.
Two days and almost three sessions have been played for essentially no point, bar the sore bodies and ball sagas. Equal scores on the board after the first dig have cleaned the slate and set up a one-innings shoot-out over the final two days. Both teams have let or been unable to prevent the game from drifting for large periods of time. But India could have seized the initiative and taken control of the game’s direction with an evening declaration today.
Out of nowhere, Chris Woakes was able to make the ball hoop late in the day, getting the umpire to raise his finger twice in one over. While the movement he found was too pronounced to uphold either of those calls, the one that did count was the one Ravindra Jadeja glanced through to Jamie Smith, bringing Akash Deep to the crease and exposing the tail proper. From going along comfortably with two recognised batters at the creased, an end was very much opened.
An animated Shubman Gill had a go at the England openers for their delaying tactics towards the end of day three.
— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) July 12, 2025
Jonathan Trott, however, was not pleased with the India skipper's actions.#ENGvIND pic.twitter.com/A3TxrXY1uo
Deep has a first-class batting average of 11.49, and has managed to get out of single figures just once in his last nine Test innings. The six he managed off Jofra Archer, while easy on the eye, had more to do with Archer’s excess pace meaning even the slightest of glances helped it on its way over backward square-leg. But even if that six inspired some confidence that Deep could use that pace to splice a few extra runs, that was brought to an end an over later by Brydon Carse.
India’s tail has been dismantled in every innings of this series so far. Their Nos.8-11 made just nine between them in the first Test, with Washington Sundar brought in for Edgbaston to bulk them out. With the end of play closing in, wickets falling and the ball finally giving England something to work with, sending them out to be knocked over again, or perhaps get a few runs of a first innings lead was a waste of time. India scored two runs from their last three overs at the crease. In a game where the new ball has at times proved deadly, could Gill have called his batters in to extend Bumrah's opportunity with it?
Declaring would have given them a crack at Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett after a day fielding in 30 degree heat. In the end, they got one over, in which the gamesmanship of ensuring it was only one nearly spilled over the top. Shubman Gill and Mohammed Siraj up shouting expletives, angel-faced England batters protesting innocence that fooled no one, it was the theatre a slow-burn Test needed to bubble up into its next act. But, instead of that energy continuing to build for another over or two or three, with Bumrah firing in at Crawley and the fielders rattling him, it will dissipate overnight.
Beyond purely the decision to declare, the delays towards the end of India’s innings contributed to a failure to move the game on. Washington Sundar disappeared to the toilet when Bumrah came out to bat, letting more minutes slip away when the No.10 was on the field without doing anything. A couple of plinked singles off Bumrah’s bat to get a lead still in single figures will do little to win the game, neither will declining Sundar a single when he’s already halfway down the pitch. But getting another over or two of him breathing fire in the evening sun with the precious overs where the new ball brings rewards would have been more likely to pull the game firmly into India’s grasp.
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