England daring to dream the impossible in pursuit of daunting target - Chris Waters

At the end of day three, faced with a target of 399, England were 67-1 in their second innings and daring to dream the impossible dream.

Only four times in Test history has a side chased more - a list bookended by West Indies’ 418-7 against Australia in Antigua in 2003 and by Australia’s 404-3 in the Headingley Ashes Test of 1948.

Perhaps more significantly, no side has chased more in Asia, but it is perhaps no surprise that England’s highest successful chase (378-3 against India at Edgbaston last year) came in the era of Bazball.

On that occasion, the hosts were indebted to unbeaten centuries from two of Yorkshire’s finest, Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow, the latter his second of the game in a man-of-the-match performance.

Both might have to perform similar feats of derring-do if England are to extricate themselves from a sizeable predicament to go 2-0 up in the five-match series.

Were this any other side, you wouldn’t give them much of a prayer; as it is, only a fool would call for the cricketing priest to administer the last rites before death was certain as opposed to simply likely.

The platform has at least been set by Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett, who shared a 50-run partnership inside 11 overs.

Their stand, furnished with handsome boundaries and habitual intent, was broken just before stumps, a blow to England’s hopes but by no means the mass damage that India were hoping to inflict during a testing late period.

Having got away with a top-edged reverse-sweep over wicketkeeper Srikar Bharat’s head off the off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin’s third delivery, a boundary that raised the fifty partnership, Duckett was undone by some extra bounce from Ashwin’s fifth ball, which he inside-edged on to pad, Bharat doing the rest with a fine catch diving forward.

England sent out Rehan Ahmed as a quasi-nightwatchman, for the leg-spinner quickly revealed himself to be anything but as he focused on pummelling runs as opposed to protecting his partner.

Ahmed hit two of the last three balls for four as he clipped Axar Patel over mid-wicket and then slashed him just past slip; with a first-class batting average of 31, the youngster is no mug.

The problem, though, will be the low bounce that was visible in the England first innings, with the pitch unlikely to get easier and prone to mischief if not outright misbehaviour.

Allied to the considerable threats of spinners Ashwin, Patel and Kuldeep Yadav, the hosts have an all-time great fast bowler in Jasprit Bumrah, who blew England away with 6-45 to secure a first innings lead of 143.

However, the lack of fielders stationed around the bat towards day’s end perhaps highlighted how England have already got into their opponents heads having overturned a 190-run deficit to win the first Test in Hyderabad, along with Rohit Sharma’s passivity as a captain in comparison to Ben Stokes, whose leadership was once more positive and inventive.

On yet another compelling day of Test cricket in Visakhapatnam (is there any other type of Test cricket these days?), England started out as they meant to go on.

James Anderson set the tone with two early wickets after India resumed on 28-0, 171 in front, bowling Rohit Sharma with a jaffa and having first innings double-centurion Yashasvi Jaiswal taken low at first slip by Root, at which point only two runs had been added to the overnight lead.

It might have got better for England but Shubman Gill, on four, having been given out lbw to Tom Hartley, was persuaded to review by his partner, Shreyas Iyer, and unexpectedly reprieved by the television replay.

Unbeknown to Gill, he had actually got a feather on the ball; he went on to add another 100 runs exactly, his third Test century.

It was an important contribution by the 24-year-old, who had been under pressure after 12 innings in which he had only twice reached 30.

He was finally caught off the glove off Shoaib Bashir, one of three catches for wicketkeeper Ben Foakes, who was once more impressive as he showed the value of staying low to take the ball in challenging conditions.

The catch of the day, however, belonged to Stokes, a remarkable effort to remove Iyer off Hartley.

Sprinting back towards long-off, Stokes hurled himself full length and somehow clung on as the ball dropped over his shoulder; someone pat his knee surgeon on the back, while we’re at it, and pour him a large one.

Patel and Ashwin chipped in with useful innings but England kept plugging away, Hartley ending with 4-77 and Ahmed 3-88 as India lost their last six wickets for 44 runs, thus failing to put matters conclusively beyond the tourists’ reach (although Anderson later revealed that Brendon McCullum, the coach, had challenged them to go for 600 had that been the target).

Root was off the field from mid-morning onwards after copping a couple of blows on the finger, but it is likely to need a lot more than that to keep him off it on day four with history to be made and a match to be won.