England’s assistant coach Paul Fabrace felt that the fall of Murali Vijay and Amit Mishra in the closing hour of the third day’s play has given his team a lift in the dressing room.
"I wouldn't say it has given us an edge, it has given us a lift in the dressing room," he said, "When you go all day with two wickets, to get two in the end is a real bonus."
"I think it's perseverance to sticking to a very disciplined way of bowling all day. We were bowling to two outstanding batsmen in good conditions and on a very good cricket pitch. But to be able to pick up two wickets at the end, I think certainly has given our dressing room a huge lift tonight."
"There's still an awful long way to go. But it's nice, when you talk about being patient, sticking to your plans and getting rewards at the end of the day - and that's exactly what has happened for us today."
Excerpts:
On England's plan: Well today, we talked lots about making sure they don’t score too easily. Both of them (Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara) are fantastic off their pads; anything you ran into the stumps on the good part of the wickets was quite easy to score. So our plan today was literally to stay outside the off stump, make it difficult for them to score; make them score on one side of the pitch and set a field for it. And we got rewards at the end of the day for being patient. They are still 200 runs behind, but it is still an excellent pitch.
On the pitch: It’s typical in this part of the world, when you get a very good cricket pitch, and then things start to happen around tea time on day four, and into day five, things happen quickly. I think both sides will expect the wicket to turn more. The cracks have certainly opened up over the last three days. So you might start to see a little more variable bounce as well.
On England's bowling: When you're 200 runs in front, you hope that happens. And that's why it is important to get your runs in the first innings. I think today we stuck to a very disciplined way of bowling. And our seamers have done a fantastic job in tough conditions. We are really pleased with the way our spinners have bowled. They took a bit of stick in Bangladesh for perhaps not holding a line and length. And I thought today they bowled particularly well, and that they had a good day today.
On England's defensive approach: We were never going to be attacking today. As I said, we are playing on an outstanding cricket pitch against two batsmen who are in, set and playing really well. Our plan was to stifle them, stop them from scoring and we did it. I think 66 runs in that middle session, we will take that as an outstanding effort from our boys. We make no excuse of the fact that we tried to make it difficult for India. And we're really pleased with the way it has gone. I don’t think we would have looked to be any more attacking today on that surface. I think we had a very good day today.
On getting little reverse swing: Well it's not a fantastic ground for reverse. You haven't got the other pitches on which you can bounce the ball on occasionally. They did. They planned and probably went cross-seam a little bit, hit the deck and that's something they tend to do. In this part of the world, as a seamer, you got to learn to try and get some reverse swing if you possibly can. But one of our things today was 'if you get reverse, great', but the temptation was to not to get too close to the pads. I think our boys' discipline overall was absolutely brilliant today.
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