Duckett unbeaten century, England’s befitting reply

1 of 1

Rajkot. With a brilliant century by Ben Duckett (133 not out), England gave a befitting reply on the second day of the third Test against India on Friday, scoring 207 runs after losing two wickets at stumps. England is currently 238 runs behind India’s first innings score of 445 runs with eight wickets remaining.

Duckett batted brilliantly and displayed baseball style and hit 21 fours and two sixes in his unbeaten 133 runs off 118 balls. India definitely managed to score 445 runs but the magic of Ben Duckett was seen in the third session. He scored unbeaten 133 runs in just 118 balls. Meanwhile, with the wicket of Jack Crawley, Ashwin completed his 500 wickets in his Test career. India got another wicket in the form of Ollie Pope which was taken by Mohammed Siraj.

Jack Crawley was out after scoring 15 runs and Ollie Pope was out after scoring 39 runs while Joe Root was at the crease after scoring nine runs along with Duckett. Duckett added 89 runs in the opening partnership and 93 runs for the second wicket with Pope. Duckett has added 25 runs in the unbeaten partnership for the third wicket with Root.

Earlier, useful contributions from Dhruv Jurel as well as Ravichandran Ashwin and Jasprit Bumrah took India to a strong score of 445 runs in the first innings. Ashwin (37) and Jurail (46) added 77 runs for the eighth wicket, after which Bumrah finally scored 26 runs to take India to a strong score.

For England, fast bowler Mark Wood took four wickets, while other bowlers also took wickets. However, the visiting team will regret dropping their catches and not using DRS carefully. They would start their innings at 5/0, with five penalty runs imposed on India due to Ashwin and Jadeja running on the danger area of ​​the pitch.

India added only 62 runs in the morning session. In the fourth over of the session, James Anderson took the light edge of night watchman Kuldeep Yadav’s bat and gave it to wicketkeeper Ben Fox. In the next over, Jadeja hit a straight drive to part-time off-spinner Joe Root, leaving his wicket at 112.

With two fresh new batsmen, England went for the pace of Mark Wood, and Ashwin made a mark with a beautiful punch through cover for four. He bowled a bouncer at Jurail, who fired the ball over the slips for six runs. Ashwin continued to hit beautiful drives and cuts for boundaries, while Jurail looked solid and took clever glances and drives into the gap to pick up his runs, as making 400+ now looks a realistic target for India .

However, the only blow for India was that Ashwin was running into the danger zone while facing Rehan Ahmed in the 102nd over, due to which on-field umpire Joel Wilson penalized India for five runs. After lunch, Ashwin continued to get boundaries through on-drives and glances, even as Jurel was caught for 32 by Ollie Pope at mid-wicket and Ben Stokes twice at leg-slip.

England finally got their chance when Ashwin missed a delivery from Rehan Ahmed and was caught at forward-diving mid-on. Ashwin scored 37 runs with the help of six fours. Jurail delighted with his sixes over mid-wicket and mid-off, but his attempt to go for the late-cut against Ahmed’s delivery resulted in a brilliant catch by Foakes. Bumrah hit a four and a six with his slog over mid-on, followed by a beautifully lofted drive over cover for a boundary.

Siraj suffered an injury on his knee while reverse-sweeping Tom Hartley and changed the decision of out to not-out through DRS. He again got treatment from the physio due to the pain caused by the knee injury in the next over, after which Wood ended India’s innings at 445 runs by LBWing Bumrah (26) on a slow ball.

–IANS

read this also – Click to read the news of your state/city before the newspaper.