At 130-4, it came down to two Azad Maidan boys to get India out of trouble. Yashasvi Jaiswal and Sarfaraz Khan had stitched an unbroken 172-run fifth wicket partnership in the second innings of the third Test in Rajkot. But here in the fourth Test in Ranchi, the situation was different. Back then, India were in ascendancy. On Saturday, on a difficult surface, they were under the pump.
Both Jaiswal and Sarfaraz are very good players against spin and they were expected to be India’s best bet against Shoaib Bashir’s off-spin. The young England tweaker was spinning a web around India’s batting. His captain, Ben Stokes, was strangulating the hosts by drying up the runs from both ends.
Jaiswal had survived a scare on 40, when he nicked Ollie Robinson to Ben Foakes behind the stumps and the entire England team believed that the ball carried to the wicketkeeper. TV umpire Joel Wilson, however, wasn’t convinced and he adjudged that the ball bounced before it reached the ’keeper’s gloves. Stokes covered his face with his hands in disbelief, but it was the right decision.
Otherwise, Jaiswal was more or less untroubled on a pitch where the odd ball was keeping low after landing on the cracks, some deliveries were skidding and a few were turning sharply. By preparing such a strip, India have brought the tourists right back into the series, but that’s a different issue.
Wickets were falling at the other end, but Jaiswal was going steady. Soon he reached his half-century and then went past 600 runs in the ongoing series. But even a well-set Jaiswal (73) had no answer to a Bashir delivery that landed on a crack and almost rolled along the surface. It took the bottom end of the bat on its way to the middle stump. India were in further trouble after losing their best batter on form.
Only a couple of balls earlier, Sarfaraz had a reprieve off Bashir, as Joe Root, standing wide at slip, failed to react quickly to a sharp chance. It went for a four, but batting felt like a lottery on this surface. Eventually, Sarfaraz (14) perished to left-arm spinner Tom Hartley. This time, Root took a superb catch at slip, but credit goes to Stokes for brilliantly setting up the dismissal. The England skipper pushed the cover back to create a gap in the field. The young Indian batter fell in the trap, as he opened the bat-face, trying to pierce it.
At 171-6, against England’s first innings total of 353, the hosts were staring down the barrel. It soon became 177-7, when Hartley accounted for Ravichandran Ashwin with another one that stayed low. The left-armer was bowling with a lot of discipline. His spin-bowling partner, Bashir, however, was the showstopper, finishing Day 2 with figures of 32-4-84-4.
Joe Root redeems himself with 31st Test century.
Root shunned the Bazzball approach to record his 31st Test century while guiding England to 353 runs in the first innings of Ranchi Test.@ThumsUpOfficial @CricSubhayan #JoeRoot #INDvENG pic.twitter.com/0GVP5nIGPJ
— RevSportz (@RevSportz) February 24, 2024
Bashir has a high-arm action, and it worked to his advantage on a pitch where the batters had to play with low hands. Shubman Gill (38) was his first victim, with a sharp-turning off-break that beat the inside edge and hit the front pad. Gill put on 82 runs with Jaiswal for the second wicket, but on that occasion, he wasn’t fully forward. He was given out leg-before on umpire’s call.
Rajat Patidar (17) — another failure for him — got out to a skidder from Bashir, another umpire’s call. Ravindra Jadeja tried to take the attack to the opposition, hitting back-to-back sixes off Hartley. But Bashir had him caught at short-leg by Ollie Pope through a top-spinner that kicked off a good length.
Jaiswal’s wicket was the cherry on the top for the 20-year-old, who had a tough initiation to Test cricket, thanks to the pre-series visa controversy. With Rehan Ahmed available, Bashir probably wouldn’t have been playing this game.
Dhruv Jurel and Kuldeep Yadav have initiated a fightback, via an unbroken 42-run eighth wicket partnership. When the stumps were drawn on Day 2, India were on 219-7, still 134 runs adrift of England’s first innings total. Jurel was impressive during his 30 not out off 58 balls. He now has the job of holding the innings together. Kuldeep (17), too, has played with a lot of common sense, but the job is far from over.
Earlier, resuming on overnight 302-7, Root and Robinson took England to 347 before the 102-run eighth wicket partnership was finally broken. Robinson was the enforcer this morning and scored 58 off 96 balls, his maiden Test fifty. The last two England wickets fell quickly, as Root remained unbeaten on 122. By then, England had a very good first innings total on the board.
For India, Jadeja was the most successful bowler, returning with 4-67 from 32.5 overs, but the hosts were left to rue two meaty partnerships — 113 runs for the sixth wicket between Root and Foakes, and 102 runs for the eighth wicket between Root and Robinson. In the context of the game, the associations might prove to be match-winning.
IND vs ENG 4th Test Day 2 | Post Match Show || LIVE https://t.co/xvFOh9Isct
— Boria Majumdar (@BoriaMajumdar) February 24, 2024