Former Indian wicket-keeper bat Dinesh Karthik showered praise on Akash Deep after the nightwatchman scored a vital knock on the third day’s play against England at the Kennington Oval. Deep scored a fine knock of 66 runs off 94 balls, scoring his maiden Test fifty.

The right-hander added 107 runs with Yashasvi Jaiswal to put India in a dominant position. Deep had the license to bat aggressively and took England bowlers to the cleaners on a difficult pitch.

He also had the rub of the green on his side as he was dropped by Zak Crawley when he was on 21.

Dinesh Karthik said on Sky Sports, “They couldn’t have asked anything more from him. All they wanted him to do was to probably just get past last night, which he did quite comfortably. Today, he came out there and played wonderfully well. Gave a chance early, they put down chances, that is what happens. That is the last thing you want. As it is, you are a depleted bowling attack, and then when you put down simple ones, it gets even tougher.

“He got lucky as well. A couple of the balls that he ended up edging just went in the gap. All in all, I think it was a wonderful effort. You pretty much can assess and understand the mindset of a team, depending on how your tailenders play. Akash Deep’s effort as a batter- you could see the applause that he got when he went back in – means so much for the team.

“What he’s done is actually take India into a very strong position and from here on, you’d expect the batters to bat on and take India into a very strong place and very good place.”

India were able to get a healthy lead of 373 runs after they were bowled out for 396. England in response were 50-1 at the end of day’s play.