England played out the perfect Day 2 on Monday, putting India under the mat with their batting, before making an early inroad to cause a few butterflies to go haywire amongst the visitors' stomachs.
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The third day's play is set for a 11 am local time (3.30 pm IST) start with live coverage on Sky Sports 2 in the UK and Star Sports 1, Star Sports 3 and Star Sports HD1 in India. The match is available for free live streaming in India on Starsports.com. Catch the action live online in the UK HERE or HERE, while viewers can also listen to the match HERE. Viewers in the US can watch the game on ESPN3 with the option to live stream HERE.
Day 3 will be about how well India can bat, and if England can extract more out of the pitch than India managed to on the first two days of this third Test in Southampton.
The onus is completely on England to attack – India, after all, lead the series 1-0, and with the hosts pretty much batting them out of the game, they will be more than happy to weather the early storm and knuckle down and bat for long hours.
James Anderson, in the final 14-over burst that England received after their declaration on Day 2, made the ball talk quite a bit, with extravagant swing causing the India batsmen plenty of trouble. Anderson will be the key for England on Day 3, and if the swing master can find his mojo with the red cherry, then India could be in trouble.
"Jimmy Anderson was outstanding with the ball -- all the bowlers were -- so it's set up really nicely for tomorrow for us," Ian Bell, who struck an outstanding hundred on Monday, told ECB's official website.
"It would have been nice to get two, but to start off with it was great and hopefully we can do the same tomorrow. There was plenty of swing going on and the pace was good from the bowlers as well."
India will look to emulate the England batsmen, and the manner in which they went about compiling that massive 569 for seven declared. If Murali Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara can see off the new ball and even bat out the first session, then India will be in a comfortable position.
The longer the two batsmen stay in the middle, the more desperate the England bowlers will get, which in turn would play right into India's hands.
"We were expecting such performance from England," Bhuvneshwar Kumar told BCCI's official website. "After losing a match every team tries to come back stronger. The wicket was flat, which made it easy for their batsmen. It were two long day for us in the field but as a bowling unit we tried our best."
While the initial onus will be on Vijay and Pujara to bat for as long as possible, much will also depend on Virat Kohli, who has done little with the bat in the first two Tests. The elegant right-hander is due a big score in this series, and if he can find his touch much like Ian Bell did on Day 2, then India should be safe.
