Spinners help England take the upper hand as India trail by 134 runs
Ranchi, Feb 24: Spinners Shoaib Bashir and Tom Hartley played starring roles to help England reach a commanding position at stumps on Day Two of the fourth Test against India at the JSCA International Stadium here on Saturday.
In the morning, resuming from 302/7, England added 51 runs to their total, with Ollie Robinson making 58, also his maiden half-century in this format. But they lost their last three wickets for six runs in the span of 17 balls, two of which were picked by Ravindra Jadeja to be India’s stand-out bowler with 4-67.
From being 112/5 at lunch on Day One, England will be satisfied to get a 350-plus total, with Joe Root remaining unbeaten on 122. Bashir, playing just his second Test, took 4-84 and bowled an unbroken spell of 31 overs to get his first four-wicket haul in red-ball cricket, while Hartley scalped 2-47 on a deteriorating pitch to leave India in trouble at 219/7 and trail England by 134 runs.
Things could have been worse for the hosts if not for the unbroken 42-run stand, off 106 balls, between Dhruv Jurel (30 not out) and Kuldeep Yadav (17 not out). In response to England’s 353, India lost captain Rohit Sharma early after he pushed forward to a length ball from James Anderson and got a healthy nick behind to keeper Ben Foakes.
Yashasvi Jaiswal, the leading run-scorer in the series, was cautious against fast bowlers early on and even survived an outside edge due to playing with soft hands off Robinson. He then played back-to-back fours -– via drive and whip off his pads -– against Anderson, before giving the same treatment to Robinson in the last over before lunch break.
Post lunch, Shubman Gill began by effortlessly driving Bashir through extra cover for four, followed by flicking and driving off Anderson for a brace of boundaries. Jaiswal lofted Bashir over long-on for six and had a narrow escape when Ollie Robinson extracted an outside edge, which was dying on keeper Ben Foakes.
Foakes felt he cleanly took the catch, but replays showed the ball bouncing before going into the gloves. Gill brought his fast hands into play by cracking a cut and guiding off Robinson for back-to-back fours, before being trapped LBW by Bashir via a delivery, which turned sharply to beat the inside edge.
