1st over: India 5-0 (Rohit 5, Gill 0). Target 49. Leave, leave, beaten outside the off-stump. It looks good but the weapon is the straight one – when will we see it? Now a misfield at backward point, Anderson the culprit – usually so safe – Rohit is off the mark with a couple. And a full toss to finish, clipped all the way to the rope by Rohit, cut off by Archer who makes an absurd diving stop. And because they raced through that over, they’ll get another in before dinner. Anderson? Broad? Archer? Nup. Joe Root it will be.

Jack Leach to bowl it. Here we go.

I thought India would be asked to face an over before the long break, but not to be. “I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility that England can defend this,” declares Andrew Strauss on telly. Umm. Meanwhile, I’ll come to your scathing emails through the interval.

Blimey. 30.4 overs is all it took, England banking their lowest score of all time against India in a Test Match. The spinners were superb, Axar (5/32) and Ashwin (4/48) never giving the visitors a chance to breathe, let alone settle. In the end, Sundar (1/1) was given the chance to finish the job, and did so within four deliveries.

Anderson doesn’t think he’s hit his attempted reverse sweep but they are out of reviews and out of time. India require 49 to win.

30th over: England 80-9 (Broad 0, Anderson 0) Cook and Strauss on Channel 4 have one thing on their minds: the pitch. Can Jimmy get through a couple of deliveries from Ashwin? Ooooh, the first spins sharply away from the left-hander’s straight blade, beating both the bat and the gloves of Pant, taken by the diving Rahane. Yikes.

Some brilliant stats work from Tom Bowtell. “Axar is breathing down the neck of Charles Marriott to claim the best Test bowling average of anyone with more than 10 wickets.” So close!

Sucked in perfectly and Ashwin loves it. Wider and flighted, Leach can’t help himself and the edge lands safely with Rahane at slip.

29th over: England 80-8 (Leach 9, Broad 0) The internet tells me that Axar’s is now the best match analysis in a day-night Test, overtaking the 10/62 Pat Cummins took against Sri Lanka at Brisbane in January 2019. Broad won’t give him a 12th here though, despite loading up for a big sweep to finish the over. No contact, no concern.

The third umpire takes his time after the criticism last night, and fair enough too. As it was through the Root review earlier, this is well handled by the man upstairs allowing him to conclude, on this occasion, that there is no inside edge. From there, it’s a formality: Axar has his fifth wicket.

IS FOAKES AXAR’S FIFTH? It looks very out. He reviews anyway.

28th over: England 79-7 (Foakes 8, Leach 8) Extraordinary to think that Ashwin has reached 400 before Lyon, who was 30-odd ahead of his rival after the Sydney Test last year when he hit 390.

“Hello again Adam.” Hi, Andrew Cosgrove. “I don’t know about your optimism about this lasting until stumps, they’ll be lucky to last as long as the cocktail break right now.”

With half an hour until the long break – I don’t think they’ll make it, especially as the umpires will extend the session at nine down.

27th over: England 77-7 (Foakes 7, Leach 7) Axar strives for a fifth. If he can get it, that’ll make three five-fors in four innings to start his Test career – there can’t be many bowlers who have achieved that. There are a couple of singles – Leach to midwicket after coming down the track, then Foakes in the same direction – before the tweaker gets one to really rip back at the left-hander to finish.

“I still remain bewildered why they don’t bat out of the crease,” adds Adrian Goldman. “If the ball doesn’t pitch, the pitch doesn’t enter the equation. Yes, the wicketkeeper is standing up – but these guys have good enough eyes that they should be able to hit or pad anything that’s close to the line of the stumps. Bowled sufficiently wide, just make a dive for the crease. If you look at Root’s non-dismissal for LBW, he was nowhere hear the pitch of the ball. Comparing English batsman to the Indians, the Indians make much firmer and longer steps forward – this difference could be obviated by the English being further forward to begin with.”

The Pujara approach, turning the dance into a formidable form of defence.

26th over: England 76-7 (Foakes 6, Leach 6) Ashwin over the wicket to Foakes with men around the bat, who are very excited when a ball pops up on the legside but doesn’t go to hand. He’s defending soundly enough by the end of the over. At times like these, batsmen have the right to be a little bit selfish – get yourself a red inker, Ben.

“Lots of talk about the test lasting for two days or may be three,” writes Kumar Pushparaj. “Can we shift the discussion to modern players technique of playing spin? I have grew up watching the cricketers of 90s and I hold that they were far better at playing spin than the current lot.”

And in this case, not lateral spin but guile. This reminds me of the way Australia capitulated to Sri Lanka time and again in 2016. Herath and co weren’t turning it around corners, they were doing the visiting batsmen on the inside edge with arm balls.

25th over: England 75-7 (Foakes 6, Leach 6) Jack Leach, that’ll do! He jumps down at his opposing number Axar and launches him over long on for SIX! The lead is 42. I’ll do my best to come to your emails soon but it’s hard graft with wickets falling and spinners in tandem!

24th over: England 68-7 (Foakes 5, Leach 0) The Indian champion is the second fastest bowler to 400 scalps, behind only Murali. He’s reached the mark in just 77 Tests at an average of 25 and there have been a staggering 29 bags of five along the way – just one behind Jimmy Anderson in half the matches played. He’s every chance of picking up his 30th by the time this England nightmare is over.

Oh yes, that’s very out. Archer tried to shovel a full one to the legside but didn’t make contact, which meant the ball was only going one place: middle stump. Ashwin has 400 Test wickets!

23rd over: England 68-6 (Foakes 5, Archer 0) Axar doesn’t miss his spot but he constantly mixes up the speed and degree of spin he puts on each delivery – it’s a true joy to watch a tweaker applying this much pressure. Foakes gets through it.

Bowled by the straight one! Pope is beaten by the drift, quite comprehensively. And that moves Ashwin to 399 Test wickets.

22nd over: England 66-6 (Foakes 3)

21st over: England 61-5 (Pope 8, Foakes 2) Axar continues, a man with the accuracy of Jadeja but with an extra six inches of height – what a combination. Three catching men in close on the off-side with the left-armer angling in at Foakes and he takes a single to cover after making solid contact, getting through easily. The Surrey stumper looks more at ease than most against this probing attack.

“Hi Adam.” Allo, Peter Salmon. “I’m guessing that when historians are writing about this game they will assume that the day/night thing was a factor. In fact, the only passage where the batsman were on top was under lights yesterday. I’m just want this on the public record so I don’t have to spend the next 20 years of my life pointing out everyone’s error.”

Spot on. I tweeted earlier than ten wickets fell in the space of 21.3 overs from Kohli’s dismissal through to Bairstow’s. What a sport.

20th over: England 60-5 (Pope 8, Foakes 1) And so, with the match, um, delicately poised, I’m going to hand over to Adam Collins. All emails to him here, please. Bye!

19th over: England 56-5 (Pope 5, Foakes 0) There’s absolutely no way this is going to a third day. “I don’t know why people are saying this is a good Test match,” rages Ian Naylor. “It’s really Test match 100 – ridiculously truncating the game by producing an unplayable pitch is no different than shortening the game by reducing the overs.”

The straight one again, and Root instantly spins and trudges from the field after getting one he didn’t consider worth reviewing. That’s the day’s 12th wicket and it’s not yet halfway through, it’s Axar’s 10th wicket of the match, and he’s just been too good on this pitch. England’s lead is 23.

18th over: England 54-4 (Root 17, Pope 4) Pope gets off the mark with a top-edged reverse sweep for four. We finally see ball tracking of the Stokes lbw, and it would have jut clipped leg stump, been umpire’s call, and therefore not worth reviewing.

17th over: England 50-3 (Root 17, Stokes 25) Due to an administrative error I didn’t post the 17th-over update before Stokes was dismissed at the start of the 18th, and now it all seems terribly out of date so let’s just forget it ever happened, yes? Anyway, the players are taking drinks.

This one definitely didn’t hit the bat at any point, and England don’t bother reviewing (though I thought it might have been heading down the leg side). It did look like Stokes made a last-ditch attempt to send it upstairs, but a second too late.

16th over: England 48-3 (Root 17, Stokes 24) This is already England’s 13th-biggest partnership of the series, and their second-biggest of the match. “As this match is likely to be over in two days but they’ve made plans and sold tickets for five, couldn’t they just start all over again tomorrow and see if they can last three days this time?” wonders Robin Hazlehurst. “Or just keep playing until the five days are up regardless of how many innings they each have? Maybe Bairstow will actually score a run in the 12th innings.”

15th over: England 46-3 (Root 16, Stokes 23) A loud lbw appeal against Root, but the umpire shakes his head. And then another one two balls later, and this time he is out! And then he isn’t!

A nightmare review for the third umpire, with the ball hitting bat and pad at near enough the same time and a succession of camera angles showing bewildering varieties of similar things – in one it’s clear it was bat first, in the next it’s obvious the pad made first contact. Eventually he decides that UltraEdge shows first contact with willow, and the captain is saved.

India are celebrating, but after a chat the batsmen decide to send it upstairs!