Karun Nair hit an unbeaten 303 in just his third test innings as India hit their highest ever test score of 759-7 against England in Chennai.
Nair hit the 30th test triple century of all time which followed Lokesh Rahul’s 199 earlier in the innings, whilst Ravi Ashwin scored 67 and Ravindra Jadeja a quickfire 51 from 55 balls.
Resuming on 391-4 and just 86 runs behind, it was set to be another tough day for England’s bowlers as just four wickets fell on day three.
It proved to be just that as India racked up another 368 runs thanks to Nair and Ashwin, who shared a stand of 191 for the sixth wicket in 57 overs.
Ashwin was dismissed for 67 from 149 balls after Jos Buttler’s fantastic catch off the bowling of Stuart Broad.
If England thought wickets would tumble after that, they were mistaken as Nair remained unphased before he and Jadeja put on a further 138 for the seventh wicket in just 19 overs.
Jadeja was to be the last man to go for 51 from just 55 balls when he holed out to Jake Ball in the deep off Liam Dawson, giving the spinner his second test wicket on debut after trapping Murali Vijay in front in the first session of the day.
One hundred, two hundred, three hundred...
Nair brought up his maiden test century mid-way through the opening session but was far from done there as he reached his double hundred shortly after lunch, becoming just the third debut double centurion for India.
He was to pile on 108 runs of his own in the final session to reach 303 not out from 381 balls including 32 fours and four sixes before India declared on 759-7 from 190.4 overs, the seventh highest innings of all time and the first innings of 700+ since 2014.
England’s bowling figures were something far from desirable as Moeen Ali returned 1-190, Adil Rashid 1-153 and Dawson 2-129, the pick of England’s three-man spin attack in his debut test.
With just five overs left in the day Alastair Cook and Keaton Jennings saw England to 12 without loss at stumps, but will have to avoid an India onslaught and ensure there is no oh so familiar England batting collapse if they are to come out of day five with a draw in the final test.