Jasprit Bumrah’s twin strikes in a searing spell gave India much needed momentum after Zak Crawley attacked the home team spinners to ensure England reached 155 for four at tea on day two of the second Test here on Saturday.
Skipper Ben Stokes (5 batting) and Jonny Bairstow (24 batting) were in the middle at the break with England still trailing India by 241 runs.
The visitors collected runs 123 runs in27 overs in the afternoon session.
Kuldeep Yadav had Ben Duckett (21 off 17) caught at silly point shortly after the lunch break. Crawley however maintained the offensive with a belligerent knock including 11 fours and two sixes.
Going with the ‘Bazball’ template, England were scoring at five an over before Bumrah wrested the initiative with crucial wickets of Joe Root (5 off 10) and in-form Ollie Pope (23 off 55) in an impactful four over spell.
Bumrah got the reverse swing going and put Root in his two minds by mixing the in and away swinger, leading to his downfall. Root was protecting his pads expecting an inswinger but Bumrah got the ball to move away from the fourth stump, inducing an outside edge.
The lead India pacer’s ball to dismiss Pope was even more special, a fast reversing yorker to which the England number three had no answer to. It was a ‘banana in-dipper’ that tailed from the fifth off-stump at a fair clip as England’s first Test hero failed to bring his bat down in time.
In the initial part of the second session, Crawley displayed brute force to put pressure on the opposition. He nonchalantly slog swept Kuldeep for a six to bring up his fifty before handing out similar treatment to R Ashwin later.
Birthday boy Crawley targeted Axar Patel as well but after hitting his first ball for a four, the opener mistimed one aerial shot to be caught by Shreyas Iyer, who took a brilliant catch running backwards from backward point.
Going into the final session, the Indian spinners will look to extract the extra bounce on offer.
In the morning, Yashasvi Jaiswal carried the load of Indian batting on his young shoulders with a remarkable double hundred as the hosts ended with 396 in their first innings.
Resuming at an overnight 336 for six, India added 60 runs to their total before getting all out in 112 overs with little over 30 minutes left for lunch. As was the case on day one, India had to rely on Jaiswal (209 off 290) to get the majority of the runs. No other Indian batter even crossed 40.
After sweeping Shoaib Bashir for a six and four, Jaiswal became third youngest Indian to make a double hundred after Vinod Kambli and the great Sunil Gavaskar.
The celebrations were euphoric for a dedicated cricketer who slept in tents at Azad Maidan in Mumbai in his growing up days, having come to the metropolis from a nondescript village in Uttar Pradesh.
On Friday too, the 22-year-old left-hander had shown no sign of fear and got to three figures with a maximum.
However, the effort of the rest of the India batters left a lot to be desired. After Jaiswal’s sensational feat, the second highest score in the innings was Shubman Gill’s 34.
Besides Jaiswal, the star of the session was 41-year-old James Anderson who produced another masterclass in seam bowling on a flat surface.
In his relentless eight-over spell, Anderson got the ball to move both ways from a wobbled seam. Even for a well-set Jaiswal, his spell was too hot to handle.
The old horse removed R Ashwin (20) with a peach that straightened from middle stumps and took the outside edge of the bat. Thinking the ball had only brushed his right thigh, Ashwin took the DRS but ended up wasting it.
Ashwin had a couple of crisp cover drives off Bashir before being dismissed.
Running out of partners, Jaiswal decided to attack Anderson as well resulting in a catch at deep cover.
The young Shoaib Bashir opened the bowling alongside Anderson and ended up bowling 10 overs in the session. The offie removed number 11 Mukesh for his third wicket.
Comments
0 comment