First things first, congratulations to Alistair Cook, it may not have been quite the century hoped for, but to score far and away his top score of the series was very fitting and he should get one more go too.
As for today as a whole...
A bit of a role reversal from England, for once the top order did it's job, only for the middle order to find the ball shaping and swinging with batting far far harder.
Anybody being really harsh could say the top order should have scored quicker, as it was the lack of runs scored to balls faced that hurt England late on but I don't share that view at all, not one little bit. They did what I've been wanted them to do and batted properly, riding their luck at times and created a platform only for the powerhouse middle order to face far tougher conditions. The difference in movement and swing between the negligible amount gained with the newer ball before lunch and the slightly older swinging one after, was remarkable.
Credit should go to India though they stuck to their task very well and bowled good lines at pace, making scoring hard to the point even 'set' batsmen struggled to find runs easy to come by. Shami for all his bad luck needed to pitch just a little fuller for better results imo.
i've never seen so many false shots from one batsman as I did from Moeen after lunch, he seemed to live a truly charmed life. Having said that he deserves credit for sticking it out, he didn't seem to get too flustered at all by the constant playing and missing, just got his head down and played and missed again.
Seriously though, a commendable effort from the top three and in very difficult circumstances far more especially after lunch when, once again in this low scoring series, the ball was very much on top of the bat.
For showing the right attitude and reigning in a lot of his more adventurous impulses Moeen deserves credit, he's at least shown the right determination and application and could well reap better rewards in the more favourable Sri Lankan conditions with far less sideways movement.
Tbf all the batsman in the final two sessions after lunch had a hugely torrid time and even those in the low double figures contributed crucial runs to scraping any sort of score together, Root and Bairstow disappointed and were amongst the initial clatter of three and even four wickets that came very quickly once Cook fell.
I feel more than a few, myself included, looked at the morning session and thought this is a great toss to win and it could well be a very big score indeed. The conditions though seemed to change and the same bowlers gained appreciably more swing and shape, batting was suddenly a hazardous business.
It maybe when the initial lacquer came off the ball it started to swing, hence the marked difference before and after lunch, but swing it did and my estimation of a par score has to come hurtling down. I think those half centuries from Cook and Ali will prove more meaningful as the match progresses.
This batch of duke balls they've been using this summer continue to offer all the seam bowlers plenty of help even on more unresponsive wickets. It's not the first time either that an initial promising start has quickly been transformed from gold to dust in quick time, remember the last test.
250 is par for me and may well turn out to be far above it, too many times this series we've made the mistake of thinking that's very poor only to consequently see it's all relative and was always good enough.
When you get real quality like Kohli, there's always a danger he could take the match away on his own but India showed in the very recent past they're every bit as capable of transforming an impregnable position into one of considerable weakness.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if this turns out something like 240 for England and 180 for India, bowling last will also be huge.
Oddschecker has England as favourites although it's very close.
Best odds, England 1/1 favourites, India 6/5
Tbf the odds have been a remarkably accurate guide at predicting the outcome all through this series and i too think it could go either way now, perhaps runs on the board and bowling last just edges it for England atm. Not that it matters a jot in the context of the series.
Regardless, this was Cook's day and he duly delivered his top score for some time.
Let's hope he can make a significant contribution second time round too and make it truly his match
