India pacers were plundered for runs by England openers as Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett added 92 runs in no time. The script changed post lunch with India making inroads and restricting England to 247. Prasidh said the three pacers just had a little pep talk in the break and decided to bowl the right line and length to control the slide. 

“Firstly, I think as a team we knew what happened before lunch and the three fast bowlers, I think we got together in a small corner and decided, you know, what’s happened has happened. And all of us know what we need to be doing and we just said, every time we are on the field, at the mark, we trust each other enough, go speak to each other, tell them if you’re not on the right track, bring your mate back in track and just make sure you’re bowling the right lines and take it from there. And as a team as well, we spoke about the same thing. Like, if the next three, two hours, if we can show some body language, I think it’s going to make a big difference and it made a big difference.”

He also admitted that it’s very difficult to adjust the line and length when batters are intent on playing shots like Crawley and Duckett did. “I think they are playing a lot of shots and as a bowling unit, it’s very hard for us to keep bowling the same areas, knowing they’re going to do all kinds of things and try to score runs. But that’s the challenge in itself. If you can still come there and know what your lengths and lines are and keep bowling the same good balls again and again, I think it’s a matter of time. And that’s the challenge, to be able to bowl the good lengths in spite of the aggressive intent of the batsman,” he said.