Applause rained down from all corners. Cricket has seen its share of wounded warriors. Anil Kumble with a bandage around his head. Graeme Smith with one working arm. Shamar Joseph steaming in with a broken toe. Rick McCosker and his shattered jaw. Moments like these transcend sport. They live on for years and years.

Pant’s willingness to put his body on the line – he is set to miss the fifth Test – ushered India to an above-par total. He finished with 54 off 75 balls and hit the 90th six of his Test career, equalling Virender Sehwag who holds the national record. He also went past 479 runs on this tour, which meant he eclipsed Alec Stewart and now has the highest tally for a wicketkeeper in a Test series in England. Not bad for a man who came to his office wearing a moonboot. Between those wild shots, the back flip celebrations, the silly mistakes, the commentary from behind the stumps, Pant’s heart often goes unnoticed. It shouldn’t. Not when it’s so overwhelmingly big.

Stokes continued his stellar series with the ball, picking up 16 wickets – a new career best going past his efforts on debut in the 2013-14 Ashes. It is often said when he has the ball in hand that he makes things happen. That’s possibly because he’s never afraid of having a punt. Sometimes, he bowls too full and that works because he gets movement both ways – Thakur found that out the hard way. Sometimes, he bowls way too short for way too long and that works because he has the strength to hurry batters up – Washington Sundar found that out the hard way. A peach brought him his fifth wicket – angled in, nipping away, taking Kamboj’s outside edge for a duck.

England built on their captain’s hard work with Duckett especially showing how little the margin of error is to him now. He turned a pretty good ball, on the base of off stump, maybe even outside, into a boundary through midwicket that kept two fielders interested right the way through and the crowd absolutely loved it. They went “oooooooohhhhh…yaaaaaaaayyyyyy” as Siraj and Washington were beaten. Given he was able to do that, it was barely a surprise that any time India went too straight, Duckett was able to access the square-leg region to great profit. He went to fifty without a single boundary on the off side and celebrated the landmark with a backfoot punch for four through cover.

Crawley, at the other end, had to be a lot more circumspect. He took 13 balls to get off the mark and those runs came with a reminder of the danger the pitch still posed as a Jasprit Bumrah delivery rose up sharply to rap him on the bottom hand. That is why India would feel like they’ve let themselves down. There was help to the fast bowlers right through the day. Those late wickets they picked up resulted in a mini-session where it was revealed how hard it was to bat out there when the ball was in the right areas. Just that it was difficult to find for a bowling unit that isn’t used to this kind of bounce. Their stock length coupled with the movement on offer kept beating the edge. So they went fuller, only to stray a little too close to the pads or the half-volley mark.

Crawley, in particular, played some sumptuous drives through cover and down the ground, and it looked like the opening partnership itself might see England through to stumps. India did raise their game towards the close and they need to raise it again on the third day to keep themselves in the fight. Otherwise the revellers in the party stand – repurposing the Mitchell Johnson song for Siraj – would be proven right. India bowled to the left. They bowled to the right. Their bowling was, well…

Brief scores: [Day 2 stumps]
England 225 for 2 in 46 overs  (Ben Duckett 94, Zak Crawley 84, Ollie Pope 20*, Joe Root 11*; Ravindra Jadeja 1-37) trail India 358 in 114.1 overs  (Yashaswi Jaiswal 58,KL Rahul 46, B Sai Sudharsan 61, Rishabh Pant 54, Shardul Thakur 41; Ben  Stokes 5-72, Joffra Archer 3-73) by 133 runs

[Cricinfo]