Hyderabad: India in the driver’s seat against England with 101 runs lead at lunch on day three at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Saturday.
At Lunch, England stand at 89/1, with Ben Duckett (38*) and Ollie Pope (16*) unbeaten on the crease.
Day three of the first Test match started with India at 421/7 with Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel on the crease, However, Joe Root’s fiery spell helped the visitors to take control of the game by breaking the crucial partnership of Jadeja-Axar.
In the third and fourth ball of the 120th over of India’s first inning, Root dismissed Jadeja (87 runs from 180 balls) and Jasprit Bumrah (0 runs from 1 ball) respectively. Root was looking for a hattrick in the game, but Mohammed Siraj did not give him the chance.
Even though Axar was on the crease, but he too fell short in front of Rehan Ahmed in the 121st over, ending India’s inning at 436 with a 190-run lead against England in Hyderabad. Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett opened for the visitors later in the first session.
On the other hand, Ravichandran Ashwin made the only breakthrough in the 10th over after he dismissed Crawley for 31 runs from 33 balls. With a partnership of 44 runs, Pope and Duckett look forward to continuing batting for the visitors in the upcoming sessions on day three on Saturday. Meanwhile, India will use their spin attack to bag early wickets in the second session.
Recapping the second day of the first Test match, Jadeja and Axar made England spinners toil hard in the third session, taking India to a strong position at the end of Day 2 of the first Test on Friday. At the end of Day 2, India posted 421/7 runs on the board claiming a lead of 175 runs with Jadeja and Axar unbeaten with scores of 81(155)* and 35(62)* respectively.
While the left-handed pair dominated the majority of the third session, it was Root who turned out to be England’s best spinner. He removed Jaiswal in the very first over, almost picked KL Rahul for a duck, trapped Bharat for LBW and managed to lure batters to play some half-committed shots. Brief score: England 246 & 89/1 (Ollie Pope 16*, Ben Duckett 38, Zak Crawley 31; Ravichandran Ashwin 1-7) vs India 436 (Ravindra Jadeja 87, KL Rahul 86, Yashasvi Jaiswal 80; Joe Root 4-79).
