Rajkot, Feb 17, 2024, IANS
Rajkot, Feb 17 (IANS) India eye taking lead over England in the third Test at the Niranjan Shah Stadium after taking three wickets, including of centurion Ben Duckett, in first session of day three’s play on Saturday. At lunch, England are 290/5 in 61 overs and trail India by 155 run.
Captain Ben Stokes is unbeaten on 39, with wicketkeeper Ben Foakes giving him company on six not out. England scored 83 runs in the session, but it was India’s session undoubtedly, thanks to Kuldeep Yadav taking two wickets while Jasprit Bumrah had an early scalp.
Even before the first hour began, India were under the pump due to Ravichandran Ashwin pulling out of the game overnight due to a family medical emergency. After a brace of boundaries, Bumrah got India the breakthrough as Joe Root dragged a reverse ramp straight to second slip.
One brought as Kuldeep trapped Bairstow lbw for an eight-ball duck by a delivery which gripped and turned sharply. Bairstow went for the review, but the decision was unchanged. Duckett wasn’t looking comfortable, but did enough to get past 150. From the other end, Stokes struggled against Bumrah and the varying turn Kuldeep got.
Stokes tried to counter-attack when he lofted, flicked and drove with ease to get boundaries. But Duckett, who was struggling with wider lines of Kuldeep and couldn’t get boundaries nonchalantly, reached out for a short and wide ball which he cut straight to cover, ending his knock at 153 off 151 balls.
Foakes survived a big lbw shout off Kuldeep, even as Stokes slog-swept him for four. There have been times where Stokes has struggled to pick Kuldeep’s googly and it will be an uphill task for him and Foakes to get England out of trouble, with the left-arm wrist-spinner bowling at good pace, turn and variation.
Brief Scores: India 445 in 130.5 overs (Rohit Sharma 131, Ravindra Jadeja 112; Mark Wood 4-114, Rehan Ahmed 2-85) lead England 290/5 in 61 overs (Ben Duckett 153, Ollie Pope 39; Kuldeep Yadav 2-77, Ravichandran Ashwin 1-37) by 155 runs