It was a day of utter domination by Team India as they set a massive target of 482 for England and then picked up three wickets upfront, including those of the openers.
Dom Sibley was pinned by an Axar Patel arm ball and Ashwin picked up his sixth wicket of the match when Burns closed the face to be caught at gully.
Next, Patel removed nightwatchman Leach to leave England three down at the close for just 53 runs.
Earlier, the day belonged to local lad, R Ashwin who lit up the innings with his fifth test century.
Ashwin’s 106 today in Chennai was reminiscent of his earlier performances with the bat for India – great timing, excellent judgement and that little extra element of a few meaty hits and some risk on a difficult Chepauk wicket.
He played aggressively while his skipper batted with a steely resolve at the other end not to throw it away for India.
His stand with Kohli produced 96 runs of which Ashwin’s share was 56.
Kohli was eventually trapped lbw by Moeen, who claimed an eight-wicket haul on his return to Test cricket.
Ashwin also batted beautifully with the tail scoring 50 of the 84 runs scored by the last three Indian wickets accelerating as he reached his hundred in the last wicket stand of 49 with Mohammed Siraj.
In the process, he achieved the unique double of scoring a hundred and picking a fifer in the same Test for the third time in his career.
Remarkably the feat has only been achieved on 5 occasions by an Indian player!
Ashwin’s wife, Prithi was quick to pay tribute to her husband’s deeds with a witty pictorial tweet.
England 134 and 53 for 3 (Lawrence 19*, Root 2*) need 429 more runs to beat India 329 and 286 (Ashwin 106, Kohli 62, Moeen 4-98, Leach 4-100)
