Welcome to day two of our live report of the third India-England Test from Ahmedabad. Join us for updates, analysis and colour. You can find our traditional ball-by-ball commentary here

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3.30pm: I can't make sense of this, so I've called in the brains trust

Wild goings-on in the first session today. Here are our resident prognosticators, George and Karthik, to read the runes of a remarkable collapse.

Andrew Miller: So gentlemen. What on earth are we witnessing, and what does it mean for all our first-day projections?

George Dobell: A weekend off.

Karthik Krishnaswamy Joe Root is doing a Michael Clarke at Mumbai here

AM: Indeed. When wickets offer excessive movement, seam or spin alike, they tend to reduce the gap between the best exponents and the rest. But can we ever have imagined this scenario after England's first-day traumas?

GD: Look, I don't know what a match-defining first-innings lead would have been. 100 would have been. Maybe as few as 50. But 20-25? No way. The game - the series - is still alive.

AM: Karthik, you mentioned the ball that didn't turn as being the secret of Axar's success, which it has been for Leach this morning. But Root, he's served up two snorters. What's going on?

KK: Root bowled a few of these in Chennai too. I thought he underbowled himself in the second innings. I'm still trying to process everything, but it feels like the skiddiness of the surface (or, as Axar Patel suggested yesterday, the pink ball) is taking out a lot of shots, so scoring runs is as hard as staying in. It's become a bit of a lottery as to whether the ball is going to turn or skid. It's very much alive, especially with India batting last.

GD: Batting last will, no doubt, be difficult. So India won't want to be chasing even 150. Zak Crawley's comments last night seem spot on. India struggling to get 200 was possible. But this is pretty extreme...

KK: The range of what is a good length is wider on this pitch than in Chennai, where there was more bounce and consequently less risk of lbw/bowled.

AM: Is that why we've seen fewer sweeps in this Test than the first two? It does seem batsmen are getting bogged down more (Crawley and Rohit aside)

KK: Yeah, you can't sweep from the line of the stumps here, as Rohit Sharma found out. Crawley and Rohit scored most of their runs against the quicker bowlers too.

AM: So, what does a surface like this look in the fourth innings? What does this much-vaunted red soil do once it's been pounded for a few days?

KK: From what sketchy knowledge I have, red soil tends to crumble rather than crack.

AM: Does that take the edge off the turn? Sounds like cracks would lend more to uneven bounce?

KK: Depends on how evenly it crumbles, if that makes any sense. But at this ground, the deteriorating red soil has often tended to slow the pitch down.

AM: So, all bets are off as to what happens from here. Sounds about right for a pink-ball Test!

GD: It could be one innings defines things from here. And that one innings could be someone chancing their arm for an hour. It's tough out there, for sure, but as tough as the scorecard shows? I'm not sure.

KK: I think Ashwin using his feet a couple of times briefly unsettled the bowlers. Batsman can't afford to keep getting stuck in their crease.

And against Axar, I think Ben Foakes showed there's a way to play by playing inside the line and assuming the ball will go on straight, and hope that if it turns, it beats you by a distance and misses the stumps too. Easier said than done, but it's broadly what they'll have to try to do.

AM: Ben Stokes hasn't used his feet for a few weeks. Maybe it will goad him into a response...

GD: England have to bat better in their second innings. Can they do that?

3.16pm: Did I say England were flat...?

Autocorrect was clearly kicking in ... because Joe Root has just bowled Washington Sundar for a duck with another utter snorter. Round the wicket, oodles of undercut from his round-arm action, pitching off, kicking and straightening, flicking the top of the stump. England are ecstatic, and suddenly India's innings is taking on very similar proportions to England's ... 74 for 2 to 112 all out; 98 for 2 to 125 for 7 ... MAKE THAT EIGHT! Because Axar Patel has just mashed his first delivery straight at short cover! Root has three without conceding a run. There's pink-ball magic happening right here, right now!

3.11pm: Rootin' tootin'! This has turned on a dime!

Extraordinary scenes in Ahmedabad. One comes Joe Root for his first bowl of the match, and he serves up an absolute snorter to the left-handed Rishabh Pant - a huge ripper out of the rough, that flicks the edge and nestles in Ben Foakes' ninja-quick gloves. England have three wickets in the blink of an eye, and this lead isn't looking quite so insurmountable now ... what can Ashwin and Washington Sundar marshall from the rest of the innings? Even a 50-run lead could prove to be priceless.

3.04pm: Leach at the double and now it's game on!

Well now things have got interesting... Rohit Sharma yawns into a sweep-shot, but is deceived once again by the ball that doesn't bite. The ball skids under his bat, thumping him almost on the hip as he gets low into his stroke, and up goes the finger once more. He reviews, but to no avail... that's smashing off stump, and though Ashwin scored a century in his last Test outing, England know they have a sniff now.

2.53pm: Leach skids one through, Rahane goes!

There's the moment that England so desperately needed. The persevering Jack Leach bags his third of the innings, and it's a familiar mode of dismissal for the match so far - the one that doesn't turn does the trick, as Rahane shapes to cut and is slammed on the knee-roll in front of off stump. Rishabh Pant arrives - never one to stand on ceremony, especially when Leach is in his sights. Buckle up!

2.45pm: India take the lead without alarm

Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane are into their day's work, with the morning's first objective chalked up without fuss. They've rumbled into the lead, with a brace of fours through the covers off James Anderson lifting Rohit into the sixties, while Rahane picked off Jack Leach with a sweep behind square - the sort of shot that England were unable to produce against Axar Patel's more brisk offerings. It's a hot afternoon, and England look pretty flat already. Ominous signs.

1.50pm: Can England claw their way back from here?

Morning/afternoon all. Welcome back to Ahmedabad where Zak Crawley, for one, insists England are still fighting for this title. But they've got to go to Motera and get something, which is going to be easier said than done after the debacle of a first day that they endured on Wednesday. India have all but over-run their first-innings total of 112, with seven wickets in hand and with Rohit Sharma looking ominously poised once more. Can they pull off a mini-blinder and keep the deficit to within 150 runs? Their hopes of making history may rest on it. Sit tight!

One observer who isn't anticipating any miracles, however, is our very own prophet of doom, George Dobell, who believes England have reaped what they have sown in their feckless display against spin bowling. As for winning the toss and getting rumbled inside 50 overs after batting first, that's a rare achievement - although not so rare in England's recent experience, as S Rajesh notes.