Superman Stokes puts England in command but Rahul, Gill keep India in the fight

Stumps India 358 and 174 for 2 (Rahul 87*, Gill 78*, Woakes 2-48) trail England 699 (Root 150, Stokes 141, Duckett 94, Crawley 84, Pope 71, Carse 47, Jadeja 4-143, Washington 2-107, Bumrah 2-112) by 137 runs

Music echoed around Old Trafford this morning. The trumpeter had chosen well. The things Ben Stokes was doing out there was beyond the realms of normal men. So they picked up their instrument, put it against their lips, and belted out the Superman theme. Paaaa-pa-pa-pa-paaaaaa...

England ended day four with 137 runs and two Indian wickets in the bank and it's largely because of their captain's exertions. A century and a five-for in the same Test match. Leading his team to their fifth-highest total in the format ever. Gatecrashing a club of only two. The big two. The ultimate two. Before Saturday, only Garry Sobers and Jacques Kallis could puff their chests out and say they had 7000 runs and 200 wickets in Tests. Now they have to scooch over. Cricket's rosy old past and its complicated present have clashed a lot over the past 48 hours thanks to Joe Root and his successor.

A lead of 311 looked match-winning-well-ahead-of-time, particularly with Chris Woakes daring to be on a hat-trick in the very first over he bowled. India had spent 943 deliveries on the field. The fatigue that sets in as a result undid two of their top order in five. Shubman Gill and KL Rahul came together with the score 0 for 2 and strung up back-to-back wicketless sessions (which suggests the pitch has flattened out) to make sure their team could push the fight to the final day, when there's rain expected in the morning. The forecast says it will clear up by the afternoon.

So England remain in command, although there might be worry about how Stokes did not bring himself on to bowl any of the 63 overs in the day. He'd done a fair bit of leg work earlier, meeting even the slightest sign of the balance shifting with extreme prejudice. Mohammed Siraj thought India had run Stokes out in the first over of the day. Stokes punished his optimism by charging at him the next over. The four runs were incidental. The disdain was the point. Stokes spent a few nervy moments in the 90s, but as soon as he got one on his hips, he was able to deflect it off to the boundary behind him - which was the cue for the trumpeter in the crowd to make their mark on this game - and celebrate it with a look up to the heavens and a sign of tribute to his father, Ged.

England's ninth-wicket stand racked up 95 runs in 97 balls with Brydon Carse almost scoring back-to-back fifties. Their highest total at Old Trafford fell. Then the highest total at Old Trafford fell. Eventually England finished with 669, their fifth-highest in Tests and their best since, oh, scoring 823 against Pakistan in October 2024. Stokes made the last 41 of his 141 runs in 34 balls including all three of his sixes. He hit one of them so hard - the deterrent at long-off be damned - his follow through had him spinning around and almost facing the wrong way on the pitch. He seemed emotional getting to his first hundred in 35 innings, and vengeful after it.

India had 15 minutes to see off before lunch. England clearly wanted to make the most of them. Woakes went around the wicket straight away and that decision yielded great results. Yashasvi Jaiswal couldn't leave the ball alone. Not with the angle coming into him. He played for it, closing the face, and a peach of a delivery, nipping away off the seam, took the edge through to Root at first slip. He fumbled the first time but not the second. In walked B Sai Sudharsan to become an advert for what happens to a team when they spend 157.1 overs in the middle. He was undecided against a short and wide delivery and in the end got caught trying to leave it.

Gill looked troubled at the start. His front pad was a big target. Thirty-seven per cent of his dismissals in Test cricket are lbw and bowled and England went after one more. Jofra Archer produced an inswinging yorker that nearly took Gill out only for DRS to reveal that the ball hit both the inside edge of his bat and the outside of his front pad almost at the same time. In the middle of this examination, Gill played a shot away from his body and immediately looked like he hated himself. Eventually, he looked up and realised it had raced away towards the cover boundary. And from there, he just decided to trust his game and play his shots. Not in the same way as throwing the bat around and hitting himself out of trouble, just backing himself to play to his strengths.

Out came the drives, and when Gill went down the ground, he evoked the history of the bat he was holding. A couple of guys with MRF-sponsored equipment were good with that particular stroke. He cut the ball well, gaining a little payback over Archer, who had hit his hand, which had been bandaged up. There were also several drop-and-runs to rotate strike and share the pressure with his partner, Rahul. It was a good innings, which could easily have been cut short at 46 when Carse had him playing away from his body again only for Liam Dawson to drop a tough catch at gully.

Gill made the most of that generosity to continue his run-spree. He went past Virat Kohli's 655 runs against England in 2016 and is chasing down Sunil Gavaskar's record of most runs as an India captain in a Test series (732). Crucially, he became confident of his defence, too. From being 46 off 52 with eight fours, he went to stumps scoring a further 32 off 111 with two fours.

Rahul was old-school, too, right from the start. He backed his technique even when the new ball drew plenty of life out of the pitch. This was a thrill for him. He shared smiles with Archer when an absolute seed snaked past his outside edge.

Rahul's judgment on what to play and what to leave was all the more impressive considering the time India were stuck in the field and how they were trailing the game. He was 20 off 71. Perfectly content, then bit by bit he accepted the rewards of his patience, scoring 67 off the next 139 balls and going past 500 runs in a series for the first time in his career. Rahul, too, had a little luck break his way when on 36, as an inside edge off Dawson skirted just wide of his leg stump.

A day five with immense possibility awaits.