English
New Delhi: As Day 5 dawns over Edgbaston, India find themselves fighting a progressively more difficult battle to keep their 2-1 lead intact and to claim the Test series against England. Day 4 was quite a lesson on how things can change in Test cricket, especially against this English side, whose second inning batting has been something else in 2022. The manner in which they approached the previous day makes it quite clear that their game plan had more teeth, and India were beginning to feel the heat by the afternoon. This will be quite a challenge for the Indian bowling unit, led by new captain Jasprit Bumrah.
The Indian batting did not really do justice to the advantage that they had after the two first innings were played and let the English bowlers in when they should have ruthlessly closed the little opening in the door. Several batters just simply did not live up to the challenge and take the attack to the English bowling.
The hosts seem to thrive on this kind of situations. In the just-concluded series against New Zealand, England scored 279/5 in 78.5 overs in the first Test, and incredible 299/5 of just 50 overs in the second and an equally impressive 396/7 (54.2 overs) in the third to sweep the series. The protagonists in all cases were largely the same three – Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow and skipper Ben Stokes.
Needless to say, they thrive on the battle plan of chasing down big targets, which was evident from the time when Stokes elected to field after winning the toss against India.
India managed to set a target of 377, which, under the circumstances, was not as much as they would have been looking at. Nevertheless, that is what they are left to battle with.
So, what are the options on Day 5? It could all be decided either way in the first session, so the first requisite would be restricting the runs, enough for the batters to try something extravagant. India are severely hamstrung with just one spinner, so one assumes Bumrah will have to lead the attack again, though his support from the other end has been sparse.
Mohammad Shami was a little unlucky not to find the edge of the bat or the stumps on Monday, while Ravindra Jadeja was handled efficiently by all the English batters.
As for Mohammed Siraj and Shardul Thakur, they were not able to provide enough support, the former going at over six runs an over. Not the ideal ploy.
It won’t be easy. The overnight batters look in prime form and Stokes still has to come in, with Sam Billings in the dressing room, apart from the rest.
This is quite a challenge for India, and it will take some serious turn of fortunes for them to wiggle out of this one. But one lives in hope.
Brief scores: India 416 and 245 in 81.5 overs (Cheteshwar Pujara 66, Rishabh Pant 57; Ben Stokes 4-33, Matthew Potts 2-50) versus England 284 and 259/3 in 57 overs (Joe Root 76 not out, Jonny Bairstow 72; Jasprit Bumrah 2-53). England trail by 119 runs
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