England 67 for 1 (Crawley 29*, Duckett 28) and 253 need another 332 runs to beat India 396 and 225 (Gill 104, Axar 45, Hartley 4-77, Rehan 3-88, Anderson 2-29)
Ludicrous though it may sound, the chase is on. No team has ever hunted down a target of 399 to win a Test match in Indi a, but no team has ever come out to play with quite such indefatigable optimism as this England team.
By the close of another enthralling day in Visakhapatnam, England’s top order had already chewed 67 runs out of their requirement in 14 overs, for the loss of Ben Duckett, but with Rehan Ahmed’s promotion in the fabled “night-hawk” role reaffirming their determination to chase every scoring option going, and revive India’s recent memories of Edgbaston 2022, when this same side hurtled to a target of 378 with barely a break of sweat.

That they were chasing so many was thanks almost entirely to Shubman Gill, whose third Test century, a gutsy 104 from 147 balls, was his first score of note in 13 increasingly under-pressure innings.
Gill came through an extraordinary ordeal in the first half-hour of the day to underpin a second-innings total of 255 that, in any ordinary Test scenario, would be plenty given the lead India took into it. But in the wake of the Hyderabad miracle, and into the teeth of another hard-hitting half-century stand from England’s openers, nothing quite seems as safe for India as it ought to. Notwithstanding the strong likelihood that the magnificent Jasprit Bumrah has another huge contribution to come, Gill’s close-of-play suggestion that India were “70-30” favourites rather underlined their misgivings.
That curious unease was present in every facet of India’s play, up to and including the cathartic roar that greeted R Ashwin’s dismissal of Duckett for 28 in his first over of the innings. But with Zak Crawley thumping his drives with front-foot dominance to reach 29 not out from 50 balls at the close, England closed the day as they had begun it – self-evidently up against it, but swinging their haymakers with ferocious conviction.