England endured a frustrating opening day of the third Test with India in Rajkot, the hosts recovering from 33-3 to close on 326-5 thanks to impressive hundreds from Rohit Sharma and Ravi Jadeja.

Jadeja will resume in the morning unbeaten on 110, and with the left-hander already in the book at 8/1 for top Indian first innings batsman, we must hope he can pick up where he left off against an England attack that toiled hard on day one but lacked the cutting edge – Mark Wood apart – to make their early advantage count.

Handing Rohit a couple of lives before he reached fifty came back to haunt England, but they have a new ball to work with when play resumes and if they can somehow restrict India to somewhere in the region of 425, they won’t be out of the Test match.

The ball nipped around early on for the seamers and there was turn for the slow bowlers, but essentially, this looks like a very good pitch for batting and it will be interesting to see how much reverse swing Jasprit Bumrah can find. There wasn’t a great deal on offer for Wood and James Anderson, but Bumrah is the modern master.

Another takeaway from the first day’s play was that while finger spin proved innocuous for lengthy periods, Rehan Ahmed looked England’s most threatening bowler after the new ball had lost its shine and become soft.

Rehan got plenty of spin from the pitch even on day one and crucially, managed to get the ball to bounce from a good length, regularly surprising Rohit and wrapping him on his gloves. Rehan went past Rohit’s outside edge on a number of occasions, too, and I suspect wrist-spin will play a big part as this match evolves.

That ability to extract extra bounce from an essentially docile surface might just set the likes of Rehan and KULDEEP YADAV apart, and I want to be with India’s wrist-spinner when it’s England’s turn to bat.

Kuldeep was outstanding when recalled for the second Test, picking up three wickets in the first innings and for a long time looking likely to give Bumrah a run for his money. Back in the Test side following an impressive run in the limited-overs formats, I expect Kuldeep to remain a big threat for the remainder of the series.

Of course, Bumrah looms a big danger again, as do Ravi Ashwin and Jadeja, but Kuldeep looks to have conditions to suit, and a record in his short Test career that suggests he could not be underestimated. In nine Tests, Kuldeep has 38 wickets at an average of 22.73. His strike-rate is 38.7. Albeit with a much bigger sample size, Ashwin’s strike-rate is 51.5, Bumrah 44.5.

Bookmakers are taking no chances with Bumrah and Aswhin, and with plenty of 4/1 kicking around, we’ll take Kuldeep to do the business on a surface that might just be tailor-made for the left-arm wrist-spinner.

Preview published at 1350 GMT on 15/02/24

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