With the series now being levelled at 1-1 after India Recorded a huge win over England in Chennai in the second test match, both teams now travelled to Ahmedabad, Gujarat two play out the last two test matches as well as 3 T20I's before moving to Pune to conclude the tour. The match was being played at the Motera stadium which was later today renamed in honour of Prime Minister as the Narendra Modi Stadium.
England Captain Joe Root won the toss and elected to bat first. England after scoring 578 runs in the first innings of the first test had failed to even go past the 200 mark with getting bowled out for 178,134 and 164 respectively in the next three innings. Rory Burns and Dan Lawrence were replaced by Zack Crawley and Jonny Bairstow.
With this match being a day/night test match, the match was played by a pink ball with limited in Attendance watching the game at the newly named Stadium.
England did not get a good start as they were hoping for as opener Dom Sibley was caught out for a duck at the slip. Jonny Bairstow who was playing for the first time in this series, also struggled as local boy Axar Patel dismissed him by a LBW for a duck.
Zack Crawley kept on playing aggressively and was then joined by Captain Joe Root on the pitch. After a good looking partnership of 47 runs, last match's hero Ravichandran Ashwin got the better of Root and broke the partnership at the score of 74/3.
After that it all went down hill for England. This time another local boy for India did the damage as Axar Patel would go on to claim another 5 fer in just his second test match as he finished with figures of 6-38 in 21.4 overs.
Indian spinners were just too good for the English Batsmens. England lost the last 7 wickets within the next 26.5 overs scoring just 38 runs as they went from 74/3 in 21.5 overs to 112 all out in 48.4 overs.
Indian Openers Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill started to play out cautiously. Rohit kept on playing a little too aggressive while Gill kept on defending. After a slow start, a partnership was developing and it was looking dangerous....
... Until Jofra Archer who was bought back into the bowling attack dismissed Gill by a short ball. Gill who usually is good at pull shot, failed to get the timing he needed and lofted it straight up before the ball found the hands of Crawley.
Rohit Sharma was then joined by Cheteshwar Pujara. However Pujara's stay didn't last long as he was dismissed by Jack Leach by an LBW in the very next over for a duck. They score after his departure was 34/2 in 15.5 overs.
Indian Captain Virat Kohli then walked out to bat. With the dew factor starting to apply due to the weather conditions, they both took full advantage of it. Rohit Sharma would go on to score another half Century.
As the game kept on moving forward, the English players were seen Completed drained out of energy as they kept on dropping simple catches at the latter stages of the day.
The duo of Kohli and Sharma added 64 run stand before Virat Kohli lost his wicket in the last over of the day as he became the victim of Leach. India finished the day at 99/3 in 33 overs at the end of Stumps Day 1.
The host trail by 13 runs now as Rohit Sharma is Unbeaten at 57 with Ajinkya Rahane now in the middle with him on 1.
0 Comments