On Wednesday morning the fourth test match of the England v India series got underway. This post looks at what has happened in the match so far.
THE PRELIMINARIES
England had selected Liam Dawson in place of the injured Shoaib Bashir, deepening their batting order in the process (Dawson is a genuine all rounder, which means that with Woakes also retained England would have Carse at number ten and Archer at eleven). For India Anshul Kamboj, who has taken all ten wickets in an innings in a first class match in India, made his debut in place of the injured Akash Deep, while in the interest of bulking up the batting medium pacer Shardul Thakur was preferred to either Prasidh Krishna or Kuldeep Yadav (who would have been my choice). Ben Stokes won the toss and opted to put India in to bat.
THE INDIAN INNINGS
The Indian upper order largely functioned quite well, but none of them managed to make a really huge score. Ben Stokes was the best of England’s bowlers, capturing five wickets. India tallied 358, respectable, but less than they would have been hoping for. Pant had had a foot broken along the way, meaning that for the second straight match Dhruv Jurel took over behind the stumps.
THE ENGLAND RESPONSE
Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley batted beautifully, though neither could make it to three figures. Crawley was first out, for 84. Duckett managed ten runs more. Pope and Root got through to the close with the score 225-2. Play resumed this morning with Root the first of the players involved to make it out to the middle. He had three test career run tallies in his sight at the start of play. Pope and Root batted superbly through the morning, and England took lunch at 332-2, a mere 26 short of parity with a huge amount of batting to come. Root by then was on 63 not out, and had passed both Rahul Dravid (13,288) and Jacques Kallis (13,289), and was now in third place in the all time list of test run scorers on 13,322, needing a further 57 to go into second and push Ponting (who played 168 tests, while this is Root’s 157th) down into third place. Washington Sundar got his bowl of the innings in the 69th over thereof, and immediately post lunch he made the delay in bringing him on look a farcically bad call by Gill, claiming the wickets of Pope (a poor shot from the Surrey man to go for 71) and Brook, out for 3. Root was still there, and now found a good partner in skipper Stokes. Just before the tea interval a single took Root’s score to 120 and his career tally to 13,379, relegating Ponting. At Root’s current rate of accumulation he will need about a further 30 test matches to close the gap to Tendulkar (15,921) at the top of the list. By the tea interval England were 433-4, 75 ahead with six first innings wickets standing, Root 121 not out, Stokes 36 not out. Incidentally this Root’s 38th test century, and due to a period a few years back when he went a long time failing to convert 50s into 100s (he has a total of 104 50+ scores in test cricket, 66 between 50 and 99 and 38 of 100+) that puts him level with Sangakkara, and behind Kallis, Ponting and Tendulkar in the career centuries list. England will be looking to bat only once – the earliest they might call a halt would be midway been lunch and tea tomorrow to give them a day and a half to polish off the Indian second innings.
PHOTOGRAPHY
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