In Pictures: India vs England, 1st Test, Edgbaston, Day 3

A photo collage of the third day's play at Edgaston between India and England.

India’s quest for a rare overseas series victory on English soil took shape on day three of the Edgbaston Test, as first R Ashwin and then Ishant Sharma made inroads into the England batting.

Ashwin, continuing from where he left off on Thursday evening, struck two early blows including the huge wicket of Joe Root, and then in a very fine spell of 6.4-0-21-3 before lunch, Ishant stunned the hosts further. Reeling from the non-stop attack fro Ishant, England slipped to 86/6 at the interval.

As soon as play resumed after lunch, Ishant grabbed a fourth wicket to make it three wickets in the over. Sam Curran, in his second Test, helped England get past 150 with a sparkling 63, and when he was last out the target for India was 194.

By stumps, India were 110/5 with 84 runs required.

SCORECARD | DAY 3 AS IT HAPPENED

Recap the third day’s action in these photos.

Ashwin struck in the fourth over of the morning when Keaton Jennings played froward to an off break and edged to KL Rahul at second slip.

It did not take long for Ashwin to strike again. Joe Root tried to work the ball away with the spin but instead flicked straight to leg slip, where Rahul held a fantastic catch. There was a brief moment of debate as to the legality of the catch, but replays showed the ball ricocheted between Rahul’s leg and hand.

Ishant’s first wicket of his crippling spell came when he removed Dawid Malan. Bowling from around the stumps, he had Malan caught at gully off a leading edge.

His second wicket came via a poor shot from Jonny Bairstow, who backed away from an in swinger and stabbed an edge to Shikhar Dhawan at fly slip. England’s lead at this stage was 98.

On the stroke of lunch, Ishant extracted Ben Stokes for 6 when the left-handed batsman edged a lovely delivery that pitched and shaped away.

When play resumed in the afternoon, Ishant finished the over he had started so brilliantly before lunch by forcing a feeble prod from Jos Buttler that Dinesh Karthik easily took. This left England at 87/7.

Sam Curran continued his impressive all-round performance with a battling innings to take England’s lead past 150.

Adil Rashid made 16 in a partnership of 48 for the eighth wicket with Curran before he was bowled by Umesh Yadav.

Curran hit his way to an attractive maiden Test half-century from just 54 balls, with eight fours and two sixes.

Ishant’s fifth wicket was Stuart Broad, which gave the pace bowler figures of 5/51.

Broad soon had his say with the ball, however, when he removed Murali Vijay and Shikhar Dhawan inside eight overs of India’s chase.

Stokes removed KL Rahul with a terrific delivery that squared up India’s No 3 and was virtually unplayable.