Josh Tongue finally broke a mammoth stand between India captain Shubman Gill and Ravindra Jadeja on the second morning at Edgbaston, but a lunch score of 419 for six left the tourists in charge of the second Rothesay Test.
Gill was impenetrable as he posted a new career-best score of 168 not out, the second time in as many weeks he has raised his own milestone, but a sharp bouncer from Tongue offered some respite by dismissing Jadeja for 89.
He gloved behind to end the sixth-wicket stand on 203, a partnership which has left Ben Stokes’ side chasing the game from behind after putting the opposition in.
The stand between Gill and Jadeja stood at 99 overnight and they turned it into an even hundred off the first ball of the morning.
Stokes was the man to deliver it, taking a stint with the second new ball in a bid to force an early breakthrough for his side. Yet neither he nor Chris Woakes, England’s best bowler on day one, were able to generate a chance on a surface that was playing straighter and truer by the minute.
India were in no mood to pass up the prospect of soft runs, Jadeja easing to his ninth fifty against England and Gill turning his day one score of 114 into a first 150 in Test cricket.
A steady trickle of boundaries gave the scoring rate a bump, Jadeja punching back-to-back fours off Stokes and Gill taking a liking to Brydon Carse after he entered the fray. With a wafer thin margin of error for the bowlers, Carse found himself driven hard when he strayed too full and pulled round the corner when he dug in short.
England were keeping tabs on Jadeja’s footwork, seemingly concerned about creating some additional rough for his own off-spin later in the game, but there was no formal intervention from the umpires.
Their own spinner, Shoaib Bashir, was not finding much joy and found himself clattered for two sixes in an over. Jadeja took a couple of steps down the pitch and cleared the rope at long on, with Gill launching into a slog-sweep which brought up the 200 stand.
Just when it seemed like England had nowhere to go, Tongue found just enough bounce to draw the error, Jadeja springing into evasive action and popping a catch to Jamie Smith.
Tongue made life uncomfortable for new man Washington Sundar in the last over before lunch, but 109 runs for one wicket meant the session belonged to India.
