Visakhapatnam. India made a spectacular comeback by defeating England by 106 runs on Monday, the fourth day of the second Test of the five-match series, due to the brilliant performance of the bowlers led by Jasprit Bumrah and Ravichandran Ashwin.
Chasing 399 runs to win, England’s second innings was bundled out for 292 runs. The Indian bowlers dealt a severe blow to their ‘baseball’ reputation. With this win, India leveled the series at 1-1. England won the first match played in Hyderabad by 28 runs. The third match of the series will be played in Rajkot from 15 February. Jack Crowley played an inning of 73 runs for England.
During this period, he showed a great mix of patience and attack in his innings and hit eight fours and one six in his 132-ball innings. Man of the match Bumrah, who took six wickets in the first innings for India, took three wickets for 46 runs in this innings while Ravichandran Ashwin achieved three wickets for 72 runs. However, he could not complete the feat of 500 wickets in Tests and is one wicket away from this record.
Akshar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav and Mukesh Kumar got one success each. England started the day at 67 runs for one wicket. The team quickly scored 127 runs in the first session but India dominated the match by taking five important wickets during this period. Before lunch, Kuldeep dismissed Crowley (73) within five balls while Bumrah gave a big blow to England by walking Jonny Bairstow (26).
At this time England’s score was 194 runs for six wickets. After lunch, England’s hopes ended with the run out of captain Ben Stokes (11) on an accurate throw by Shreyas Iyer. Ben Fox (36) and Tom Hartley (36) troubled the Indian bowlers a bit by making a partnership of 55 runs for the eighth wicket, but after the break of this partnership, the team soon completed the formalities by taking the remaining two wickets.
The on-field umpire accepted the catch appeal of the Indian players against Hartley on Ashwin’s ball. After which Hartley took DRS. DRS showed that the ball had hit his arm and gone in the air.
The third umpire upheld the ‘umpire’s call’ for LBW but it was taken for a DRS catch, so LBW was not considered. However, Rohit and the Indian players looked unhappy with this. While Crawley showed a great mix of patience and attack in his innings, Joe Root (16) and Ollie Pope (23) had to bear the brunt of their aggressive approach.
The on-field umpire rejected the appeal of LBW on Kuldeep’s ball against Crowley but captain Rohit Sharma’s decision to take DRS was successful. Bumrah, India’s best bowler in the match, bowled fiercely in the initial two-hour session. Bumrah, who usually bowls four-five overs, bowled more overs in his initial spell and then LBW Bairstow on his return to bowling.
However, Root will be more disappointed with his effort as he went beyond the crease and played an aerial shot without reaching the pitch of the ball and was caught at short third man. This is Ashwin’s 499th wicket in Test. Earlier, Akshar trapped Rehan Ahmed (23) LBW while Rohit took a brilliant catch of Pope in the slip off Ashwin’s ball.
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