‘We’ll go to bed dreaming about getting Kohli out first thing’ – James Anderson

Saturday, 4 August, the fourth day of the Test, will begin with India on 110/5, chasing a target of 194 to take a 1-0 lead in the five-match series. Anderson, England’s veteran pacer, knows it can finish very quickly.

“We know it’s going to be 25-30 overs max one way or another. So we can have that on our mind, as bowlers, to freshen up and gear up for those overs,” he said after the third day’s play. “We need five wickets and we need them fairly quickly. We’ve got to give it everything we’ve got, leave absolutely nothing out there.

“We could do something special tomorrow by winning such a close Test match, so we’ll go to bed dreaming about getting Kohli out first thing.”

So far, Kohli has been the biggest barrier between England and victory. In the first innings, the India captain rallied the tail for a heroic century, making 149 of India’s 274 runs, cutting the hosts’ lead to just 13. In the second innings, he is still batting on 43.

Anderson, whose duels with Kohli have had another intriguing chapter in this match, insisted that England could get the batsman out: “Nobody is invincible.”

Happy with his own approach, he explained, “I have been encouraged by the way I have bowled at him so far. I found the edge a few times in the first innings. On another day, I could have got him for 21 and we’re not talking about how brilliant he is, we could be in a much different position now. But that's not the case. We've just got to go away and know we can get him."

Every run Kohli makes will be a reminder of England’s poor slip catching. They dropped him twice in the first innings, including on 21, and Anderson admitted it was not up to standard.

“It is an area where we’ve changed quite a lot, the personnel in the team have changed quite a lot, so it has been difficult to get a set cordon and people getting used to being in there," he argued.

“The lads work really hard at it but it’s something where we have to keep working harder and harder, pushing ourselves to be better, because we can’t keep creating the chances we are and not taking them. You can’t drop Virat Kohli on 21.”

The big takeaway for England from the match is the performance of Sam Curran, who put in a fiesty all-round show, backing his four wickets with 63 off 65 balls, giving England something to bowl at.

“He is a really impressive lad,” said Anderson about the young left-arm pacer. “I remember me as a 20 year-old and I did not know what was going on and I was in awe of everyone. But he has been around a bit and he knows his game really well for a young lad. His skills are brilliant with the ball, he knows exactly how to set batsmen up and we saw he has talent with the bat as well.

“He has a bit of fight in him as well. To go out in that situation, show the guts and determination to get the team back in it was brilliant to see from a young lad.”