A day India would not be too disappointed with but England will certainly feel they are ahead now and why not India trail by 474 runs with 10 wickets remaining in the 1st innings by the End of Day 2.
As the day started Moeen Ali completed his century and along with Stokes began to keep the score board ticking. Stokes was extremely lucky when Indian fielders just couldn’t hold on to catches and making half chances count.
Mohammad Shami cleaned up Ali with a beautiful delivery but not before they had already given some kind of momentum for the rest of the day. But that wasn’t the final nail in the coffin, England managed a 99-run stand for the 6th Wicket and another 52 runs for the 9th wicket in which Ansari (32 off 83) and Bairstow (46 off 57) played a key role along with Stokes. And India could only bowl out England when were close to the 550 mark, their scoreboard showed a 538 run which left Indian players huge job ahead of them.
But the Indian openers didn’t disappoint and until stumps India did not lose a wicket with 63 run on the board. Spin was introduced early in the attack by Cook and the openers looked quite comfortable playing spin, especially Gautam Gambhir, his foot work against the spin was amazing. But Gambhir looked far away from his prime yet effective enough.
Murali Vijay also complemented him really well and the duo made sure that India do not feel too bad at the end of the day. Even if England are definitely ahead in terms of session by session comparison, it would really be a test for their bowlers to bowl out this Indian Line up that too in the given conditions.
If India bat well in the third day of the match, the game is definitely on and if the pitch behaves in ways that Day 4 and Day 5 pitches are expected to behave, then you never know India might still win it from here.
The first session of Day 3 will be the most important, on one hand India would look to start from exactly where they left, England would look to pick up 2-3 wickets in the first 20 overs of the day.
India would definitely want to improve their catching, the next time they come on to field. With the game beautifully poised, Day 3 would be a massive day to consider who is actually heading this contest or is the match heading towards a draw.