England worked hard on their breakthroughs on Thursday, and they will be happy to have lost Shubman Gill, Ravindra Jadeja, and KL Rahul, who have recently put them to shame. However, captain Gill gave his wicket a suicidal run-out.
Even with only four days left, India’s chances of putting themselves in a position to force a victory already seem extremely slim.
Even without injured captain Ben Stokes, England’s all-seam attack had a competitive advantage despite the overcast morning conditions.
As stand-in captain Ollie Pope finally got on the right side of a DRS review after 14 unsuccessful appeals last year, Recalled Gus Atkinson dragged Yashasvi Jaiswal lbw for two as stand-in captain.
Before turning in Chris Woakes for 14, Rahul, who had scored more than 500 runs in each of his first four games, appeared to be generally untroubled as India drew to lunch with a score of 72-7.
Gill, who had four centuries to his name in the series and had an average of more than 90 runs, mysteriously set off for a nonexistent single as bowler Atkinson had time to move the ball to his right before putting the bat down the stumps.
Gill had all kinds of records in his sights on the day, but he only managed 21 as his 743-run total placed him ahead of Garfield Sobers of the West Indies (722 in 1966) as the visiting captain with the highest total runs scored in a series in England, either for or against the hosts.
A wayward Josh Tongue, whose first over was nine balls and went for 12 runs, finally found his line to nip Sai Sudharsan’s bat for 38 after a delayed rain-delayed restart.
With their big-hitters all gone or, in the case of Rishabh Pant, injured, Tongue repeated the feat soon after and removed Jadeja, who had a superb unbeaten century in his team’s rearguard action in the fourth test for nine. India were reeling on 123-5.
Dhruv Jurel was tucked up by Atkinson and then neatly caught by Harry Brook for 19 after overturning an lbw decision against him.
As the impressive Atkinson finished the day with figures of two for 31 off 19 overs, Karun Nair batted calmly to finish with a score of 52 not out, and Washington Sundar, who turned in another centurion last Sunday, was on 19, at the close.
Woakes, who had a serious shoulder injury as he dived heavily to avoid a boundary in the final overs, had a less enjoyable day.
Source: Aljazeera
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