Cheteshwar Pujara delights in soaking up England attack in fifth Test

Midway through the afternoon, Edgbaston fell into a Sunday lull. The clouds had closed over, the wind had dropped, in the Hollies Stand the Teletubbies were sitting quietly over their pints, the Pope was thumbing his phone and WG Grace seemed to have nodded off into his beard. The last chant of Don’t Take Me Home had died out a while back. No one was roaring, shouting, sighing, or singing, and even that one Indian fan who had spent the entire day screaming Virat Kohli’s name over and over again seemed to have lost his voice. Cheteshwar Pujara can do that to a crowd.

They had been spoiled in the morning, when Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow had batted like they had breakfasted on benzedrines and brandy.

They have been spoiled all summer by Brendon McCullum’s manic plan to reinvent the way they play and make the game more entertaining by rattling along at four-and-a-half runs an over. It’s all fours and sixes when they’re batting, short balls and five-man slip cordons when they’re bowling.

Which was one reason why England were 132 runs behind when Pujara walked out with Shubman Gill to open India’s second innings.

The deficit meant this next stretch of play was one of those when everyone watching knows the match is about to turn one of two ways. England’s best chance of winning from this position depended on whether or not their bowlers could take wickets with this new ball, because as soon as it started to turn soft on them that lead would grow so quickly that it would soon end up out of even Bairstow’s reach.

The crowd knew it too, and rose to the moment. They erupted once when Jimmy Anderson had Gill caught at slip with the third ball of his first over, and then again when he beat his replacement at the crease, Hanuma