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After two days of cricket of third Test between India and England at Headingley, the home side came into Day 3 to put the game to bed. Despite getting bowled out quite early on Friday, Joe Root's side had got a sizeable lead of 354 runs in the first innings. India needed a miraculous opening partnership to pave their way back into the match and push the contest towards an improbable draw.
As KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma came to bat, it looked like the visitors were determined to put up a fight to save the match. India's opening duo battled it out hard and were set to end the first session without losing any wicket. With score reading 34/0 in 18.5 overs, things were looking quite good. But things turned upside down right at the stroke of lunch, thanks to a moment of brilliance on the field.
Bairstow takes one of the best catches of the series
It was the last delivery of 19th over and lunch was around the corner. A few words had been exchanged between Craig Overton and KL Rahul during the over and things were getting a bit heated up. This is when the tall pacer bowled a peach of a delivery drawing an outside edge from the batsman as the ball flew towards the slip cordon.
With so much pace, it looked like that the ball would travel towards the third-man boundary between the first and the second slips. However, Jonny Bairstow dived towards his left and stretched his left hand in a blink of an eye. Amazingly, the ball stuck into his hands and within seconds, India had lost the wicket of KL Rahul.
The English players erupted with joy as they went towards Bairstow to acknowledge his brilliant grab. The home side got the much-needed breakthrough with one of the most in-form Indian batsmen walking back to the pavilion.
Watch the video here:
Rohit and Pujara steady the innings after lunch
It was crucial for India to not lose any wicket just after Lunch. Cheteshwar Pujara joined hands with Rohit Sharma and saw the first 30 minutes of second session without any trouble. There was a flurry of boundaries from India's number 3 and Hitman as the scorecard read 89/1 in 38 overs at the time of writing.