India lost 3 wickets scoring 99 runs at the end of the first day, came to the field on the second day with Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane at the crease. India’s innings came to a halt at just 145 in front of the English spinners on Ahmedabad’s spin wicket. In the spin-heaven wicket, captain Root took five wickets with his part-time off-spin. That too again created incredible fame. The English captain took five wickets giving away just 8 runs, which is the least runs conceded by any spinner to pick up a. Rohit has scored the maximum 66 runs for India in such a wicket. India got a 33-run lead in the courtesy of his innings.
England had a chance to return to the match with a big score in the second innings. But Axar took the wickets of Zak Crawley and Johnny Bairstow in the first over. After that, eyes could not be taken off the Test match. England was losing one wicket after another. The English batsmen were playing the balls for the turn, but Axar-Ashwin took the wickets on straight deliveries. England was all out for 81 in just 30.4 overs. Which is their lowest run in a Test against India. Man-of-the-match Axar Patel took 5 wickets in the second innings after taking 6 in the first innings. Picking up 4 wickets, Ashwin became the second-fastest bowler to take 400 wickets in 77 Tests. Only Muttiah Muralitharan (72 matches) has made the record playing less number of matches than him.
The two Indian openers were in a hurry to win the Test in two days. Rohit and Shubman Gill might have known about the record. England lost a Test within 2 days before 100 years from today, in 1921. Who would want to miss the opportunity to do the same thing again on the centenary of that defeat to Australia! The Rohit-Shubman duo spent just 7.4 overs to chase England’s short target of 49 runs.
England was looking at this pink ball test even before the start of the series. The visitors had a full-fledged bowling attack for this Test. James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Jofra Archer–these three pacers were taken at a time thinking about the movement of the pink ball in mind. Expert spinner Dom Bess had been rested and Jack Leach had been named in the squad as the only spinner. If England had looked at the wickets without looking at the color of the ball, the tale of Ahmedabad could have been different.
Joe Root’s side would have survived the race for playing the Test Championship final if they had beaten India in the pink-ball Test. But the victory was far away, they are drowning in the shame of losing by a huge margin of 10 wickets in just two days. At the end of the third of the four-match Test series, India is now leading 2-1.
Playing XIs:
England – Dominic Sibley, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes, Ollie Pope, Zak Crawley, Joe Root (c), Ben Foakes (wk), Jack Leach, James Anderson, Jofra Archer, Stuart Broad
India – Rohit Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Rishabh Pant (wk), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli (c), Washington Sundar, Ravichandran Ashwin, Jasprit Bumrah, Axar Patel, Ishant Sharma
Scoreboard:
England (1st Innings) – 112/10 (48.4)
Fall of wickets: 1-2 (Sibley, 2.3 over), 2-27 (Bairstow, 6.1 over), 3-74 (Root, 21.5 over), 4-80 (Crawley, 24.4 over), 5-81 (Pope, 27.4 over), 6-81 (Stokes, 28.5 over), 7-93 (Archer, 34.2 over), 8-98 (Leach, 37.3 over), 9-105 (Broad, 46.3 over), 10-112 (Foakes, 48.4 over)
India (1st Innings) – 145/10 (53.2)
Fall of wickets: 1-33 (Gill, 14.6 over), 2-34 (Pujara, 15.5 over), 3-98 (Kohli, 32.2 over), 4-114 (Rahane, 38.2 over), 5-115 (Rohit, 40.1 over), 6-117 (Pant, 41.1 over), 7-125 (Sundar, 45.1 over), 8-125 (Axar, 45.3 over), 9-134 (Ashwin, 49.2 over), 10-145 (Bumrah, 53.2 over)
England (2nd Innings) – 81/10 (30.4)
Fall of wickets: 1-0 (Crawley, 0.1 over), 2-0 (Bairstow, 0.3 over), 3-19 (Sibley, 8.3 over), 4-50 (Stokes, 17.2 over), 5-56 (Root, 18.5 over), 6-66 (Pope, 21.6 over), 7-68 (Archer, 23.2 over), 8-80 (Foakes, 28.2 over), 9-80 (Leach, 29.4 over), 10-81 (Anderson, 30.4 over)
India (2nd Innings) – 49/0 (7.4)
Result – India won by 10 wickets
Player of the Match – Axar Patel
The men in blue are in a commanding position to clinch the series’ title. Predict the winner of the last Test & play on Baji!