ENG VS IND, 1ST TEST
Ben Duckett top-scored with 149 © Getty
England chased down 371 on Day 5 at Headingley to register their second-highest successful chase in Tests and take a 1-0 lead against India. Ben Duckett led the chase with a fabulous 149 and was ably supported by Zak Crawley (65) in a 188-run opening stand. Joe Root (53*) and Jamie Smith (44*) stitched together a 71-run partnership to take the hosts across the line.
Before Smith and Root took control, at the start of the final session of the day, Ben Stokes began by toeing one to the gully boundary with requiring less than 100 runs. In an attempt to break open the game, Shubman Gill turned to Jasprit Bumrah, but a defiant Stokes played him out of the attack, and the negation of Bumrah ended up playing a large part in England’s triumph.
In that tense final session, India lost their final review in a bid to see the back of Root, but the ball was missing wickets on ball-tracking. Stokes was adamant to play the reverse-sweep against the left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja who was consistently pitching it into the rough outside the left-hander’s off-stump.
The England captain got lucky once having gloved it straight up in the air, but Rishabh Pant and KL Rahul couldn’t pick up the ball as it fell tantalisingly short. The southpaw followed it up with two boundaries off Prasidh Krishna as England brought up the 300-run mark. Stokes’ stubbornness to continue playing the reverse-sweep against Jadeja proved to be his downfall as he played it straight to Gill at short-third man.
Root played his classical cover-drive for four against Prasidh while Jamie Smith played a lovely back-foot punch off the same bowler to the fence. The latter followed it up with a forward drive against Jadeja as England now required less than 50. Root moved to 50 once India took the second new-ball with a boundary through gully before Smith finished the game with a four and two sixes off Jadeja, as the hosts completed a famous win.
The chase however was orchestrated by the openers who laid a solid foundation to tackle the target. They were initially watchful at the start of the day, against the Indian pace trio. Prasidh honed in on a fifth stump line to Duckett – much more fuller in length, trying to entice him to drive, but missed the bat on numerous occasions. England began to rapidly race through the gears after drinks. Duckett pounced on anything short offered to him by Prasidh while Crawley got into the act with a cover drive, taking on Thakur who lacked control. The lanky opener brought up the 100-run partnership close to the Lunch break.
England did score 152 runs in the extended second session – due to rain – but lost four wickets in the process. Once again, the openers withstood the initial storm by the Indian bowlers before the runs began to flow again. Crawley played elegant on-drives against Bumrah as he moved past 50. His partner, Duckett, moved to 94 with successive reverse-sweeps off Jadeja but the nervous nineties almost consumed him in the next over. He couldn’t control a pull off Siraj but Yashasvi Jaiswal fumbled yet again, dropping his fourth catch of the match. The southpaw moved to his sixth Test ton with another reverse-sweep before the rain halted proceedings.
After the break, India came back into the contest as Prasidh first got Crawley to nick one to first slip and followed it up by castling Ollie Pope (8). Prasidh finally pitched the ball up on both occasions and got the ball to talk. One run short of his 150, Duckett played an uppish cover-drive and was pocketed by Nitish Reddy off Thakur before Brook was caught down the legside off the next delivery to hand the tourists a glimmer of hope, which was quickly shut out by a clinical Root who led the back-end of a famous chase.
Brief scores: India 471 (Shubman Gill 147, Rishabh Pant 134, Yashasvi Jaiswal 101; Ben Stokes 4/66, Josh Tongue 4/86) & 364 (KL Rahul 137, Rishabh Pant 118; Brydon Carse 3/80, Josh Tongue 3/72) lost to England 465 (Ollie Pope 106, Harry Brook 99; Jasprit Bumrah 5/83, Prasidh Krishna 3/128) & 373/5 (Ben Duckett 149, Zak Crawley 65; Shardul Thakur 2/51, Prasidh Krishna 2/92) by five wickets
© Cricbuzz
