Bangladesh are likely to go with the same team that helped them level the series.

Bangladesh (probable XI): Parvez Hossain Emon,  Tanzid Hasan,  Litton Das (capt, wk),  Towhid Hridoy, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Shamim Hossain, Jaker Ali,  Mohammad Saifuddin,  Rishad Hossain,  Shoriful Islam,  Mustafizur Rahman

(Cricinfo)

When the innings came to an end around an hour before stumps, Australia A had gone from a shaky 127 for 4 on day two to be all out for 486 – a lead of 214.

In reply, Sri Lanka A were quick out of the blocks with Lahiru Udara taking 12 runs from Perry off the first five deliveries of the innings. He soon fell, however, skying an attempted pull off paceman Henry Thornton to keeper Philippe on 17.

McSweeney had resumed seeking six more runs for the century that would shore up his message to national selectors, after being overlooked for Australia’s current tour of the West Indies.

Instead he was out on the first delivery of the morning, bowled between bat and pad by a sharp delivery from paceman Pramod Madushan which moved back off the seam, his innings ending off 220 balls and including six fours.

McSweeney’s South Australia team-mate Scott began the day on 52 and added 42 more off 104 balls as he and Philippe put on 98 for the sixth wicket.

But Scott also departed for 94, this time off 221 balls, the allrounder holing out to mid-on against left-arm spinner Sonal Dinusha, who was the pick of Sri Lanka A’s bowlers.

Philippe and Perry kept the runs coming in a 58-run stand before the former was trapped lbw to Nishan Peris for an aggressive 85 off 107 deliveries, with five fours and a six.

Perry continued in building a more steady 61 before he was also caught off Dinusha, mistiming a drive to extra cover.

Brief scores:

Sri Lanka A 272 in 82 overs (Nawanidu Fernando 34, Sonal Dinusha 105*, Isitha Wijesundara 33; Liam Scott 2-27, Henry Thornton 2-31, Nathan McSweeney 2-51)  and 49 for 1 in 13 overs  trail Australia A 486 in 161.4 overs  (Nathan McSweeney 94, Liam Scott 94,  Josh Philippe 85, Perry 61, Weatherald 54: Sonal  Dinusha 4-97, Pramod  Madushan 3-82, NishanPeiris2-137)  by 165 runs

(Cricinfo)

In the fifth over after tea, a man with a broken finger got the ball to spin off the middle of the No. 11’s bat and onto the stumps. Lord’s. On July 14. It is not a place for the faint-hearted. Mohammed Siraj did not belong on his feet. Sorrow engulfing him. Shoaib Basheer  invaded the sky. Joy propelling him. He had just sealed the closest Test match victory this old place has ever seen.

India woke up in London looking for 135 runs. Instead, they ran into 21.5 overs of hell in the morning session. They’d dished it out four years ago. England felt compelled to return the favour. And they didn’t need to look as far back as the 2021 game to rouse themselves. There’s been plenty of needle over the past three days, starting with Shubman Gill’s irate response to their delay tactics and peaking with Siraj’s send-off to Ben Duckett.

Even the totally chill Jofra Archer couldn’t help but get in Rishabh Pant’s face after knocking back his off stump. It was the third over of the day. He had just been smashed back down the ground, one-handed, and it rubbed him just enough the wrong way that he began to pump his legs harder as he ran in. That extra effort meant the ball bit into the pitch that little bit extra and breezed past the outside edge to make friends with off stump, which couldn’t help but do cartwheels.

Archer usually celebrates the wickets that mean something to him by running off into the distance. The one he took in his first over of this, his first Test in four years, would’ve had him leaping into the crowd if not for Bashir’s intervention. Here, he was starting to do so but quickly changed direction and ran up towards the retreating batter to fire off a few words.

Stokes had demanded this. He wanted noise. He wanted belief. He wanted energy. He wanted India to feel trapped behind enemy lines. “Bang, bang,” he’d said just a few minutes before the Pant dismissal and turned it into prophecy when he got rid of KL Rahul, 18 balls later. He was on the floor appealing for lbw, every bit of him straining to convince umpire Sharfuddoula to lift the finger. He didn’t. Immediately, he poured all of himself into figuring out a reason to review. Really there was only one thing he needed to know. Was height an issue? No, said Joe Root from the slips. He’d seen Rahul was well back in his crease.

The review confirmed Stokes’ instincts. The ball was good. The movement down the slope was devilish. The impact was pad first. And HawkEye revealed three reds. Stokes pumped his fists. Many of the 24,281 people at the ground roared with him. Ten of them were right there beside him. His team-mates, who have seen him do impossible things and who believe they can do similar just because he says they can. That was the picture of this Test match. Stokes at the centre surrounded by the rest of England.

India lost three wickets for 11 runs in four overs. Jadeja and Nitish Kumar Reddy were thrown into the fire and for a while they coped. The ball got soft. The runs came at a trickle. Efforts to rouse the crowd landed on the wrong set of ears as chants of “Indiaaaaaa! Indiaaa!” rang out. The eighth-wicket stitched a partnership of 30 runs in 89 balls and through it they resisted not just good bowling but their own base impulses.

“Not in the IPL,” Harry Brook chirped at Reddy. “Jaddu’s got to score them all.” Stokes tried to engage him too, adding to his own workloads during that marathon spell by extending his followthrough, but the India allrounder just calmly shook his head. “Not saying anything.” It felt like the partnership had survived its biggest test and safety in the form of the lunch break was almost at hand.

That’s when Chris Woakes arrived and turned the game on its head. Although his pace had dropped, and England looked elsewhere when the day started, now they were grateful to their wizard for securing a crucial edge through to the keeper. Reddy, so solid when the ball was close to his body, flirting with a wider line and throwing his head back when the mistake led to his undoing. England walked off the field to resounding cheers.

Jadeja didn’t lift up the anchor even though he only had the bowlers for company and was nearly made to regret it. He was given out lbw to Woakes in the 48th over, with India still 68 runs away. But though the on-field umpire had thumbs-upped the appeal, DRS had other ideas. Jadeja realised how close he’d gotten to disaster and sent the next ball soaring into the stands behind midwicket. That, apparently, was nothing more than a little venting of the nerves. There would be no more boundaries for 11 overs as Jasprit Bumrah showed great resilience and Jadeja, trust in his plan. They were going to do it in singles, particularly off the fourth ball of every over. India’s ninth-wicket partnership held England off for 131 deliveries – 53 of those faced with no trouble by Bumrah but the 54th became a problem.

Stokes again, in the sixth over of another Iron Man spell, went short. He had refrained from doing so previously because the pitch had gone to sleep and digging it in didn’t seem to make sense. Now he was desperate enough to ignore the signs and just have a bit of faith. Bumrah invited the plan when he tried to hook a couple and missed, at which point Jadeja at the other end shook his head so disapprovingly, normal people would have just burst into tears. All this effort and you had to go and do that?

Bumrah didn’t learn his lesson though. He still went hooking and a top edge settled England’s nerves and left India on the brink.

Stokes closed out the over and finally allowed his aura to fade and show some signs of exhaustion. He straight up forgot to pick up his cap from the umpire. He still continued to bowl though. He was still embedded in the fight, exhorting Archer to attack the ball at long-on, cheering Jamie Smith when he prevented a slower ball from sneaking past him, surging towards Ollie Pope when he thought he’d taken the match-winning catch at short leg, slipping under the lid at bat-pad. When what he had worked for finally happened, he just watched the rest of his team take off. He was too tired to join them. So they all came to him instead.

Brief scores:
England 387 and 192 (Joe Root 40;  Washington  Sundar 4-22) beat India 387and170 (KL Rahul 39, Ravindra Jadeja 61*; Ben Stokes 3-48, Joffra Archer 3-55) by 22 runs

[Cricinfo]