England assistant coach Trescothick feels KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant will be the two batters who could determine the third Test’s fate
Nagraj Gollapudi13-Jul-20251:20
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Can England get early wickets and push their way past India in their quest to take a 2-1 lead in the series? Can India stay positive and get the 135 runs required to win consecutive Tests after losing the series opener?According to Marcus Trescothick, England’s assistant coach, both teams are “desperate” to win, which will only add to the excitement to this gripping Lord’s Test, which has been drama-filled over the weekend.”Well, if I knew that, I could probably relax a little bit easier coming into tomorrow,” Trescothick said at the post-match media briefing when asked which team had the edge going into day five. “But of course, both teams are desperate to win.Related
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“It’s going to be amazing, isn’t it? Already we’ve seen four good days of cricket and two games, which have been well supported, but that last sort of hour or half-an-hour, the support and the energy around the ground made it amazing really, didn’t it? Everybody was invested into it.”From an England point of view, obviously brilliant – we love those sorts of situations when the crowd is really up behind the team. Hopefully we can get a bit more of that tomorrow and we can sort of push forward to winning the game. So it will revolve around the first hour of the day tomorrow, how positive India can be, how dominant we can be with the ball, and how many earlier wickets we can get.”Lord’s has been a sellout over the weekend and the crowd had been on the edge of their seats for most of Sunday. which was bookended by a lot of drama. If the morning session started with Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj delivering probing spells to strangle England, Brydon Carse and Ben Stokes took back control from India by picking three late wickets to leave them at 58 for 4.Still England will be wary of the remaining India batters. KL Rahul, who is unbeaten on 33, still has Rishabh Pant, Ravindra Jadeja, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Washington Sundar left to come in. Trescothick agreed that Rahul and Pant were the two “dangerous” batters who could hurt England on Monday if they found their footing.Rahul, who scored his second century of this series on Saturday, has found success with his old-school approach to Test batting, which relies on defence, and Trescothick said dismissing him early would be key to prising open the India batting.”KL’s been classical old-school style of Test cricket and he’s left the ball really well. His judgment of the length is good, looked to bat for a long period of time and he’s done it well,” he said. “Obviously [Rahul got] a hundred in the first innings. Hopefully we can get him out early and we can start getting into the rest of the tail as they come along. But he’s been pretty dominant in a few of the games that he’s played and he’s pretty much got a score in most innings that he’s played.”2:02
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India remain confident of claiming another Lord’s win after their thrilling victory in 2021, which ended on the final hour of the fifth day. Washington, who enjoyed one of his “best” days in Test cricket after picking 4 for 22, said India were positive and it would be “amazing” to win a Test at Lord’s. The allrounder said there was no particular “approach” India would take in scaling the target, barring playing to the situation. “We know it’s going to go really well for us,” he said.All through, fans of both teams were completely immersed in the run of play, especially the India supporters who – based on the noise levels – seemed to have outnumbered those backing Stokes’ side. That the fans could be a catalyst was evident when Joe Root, standing in slips, started to bring his hands together asking the home fans to get behind England.Trescothick agreed the electric atmosphere was an important element and would once again play a role on Monday.”It might take a wicket [early on day five] to sort of get it going,” he said. “We might need Joe to wind them [the fans] up again. But the support has been brilliant throughout because obviously we know both teams are really well supported and it’s great that we have that. And of course, tomorrow will be no different, because everyone loves their cricket and we’ll get another full house where both sets of supporters will get to see a finale of amazing Test.”