India vs England, 2nd Test: Indian Spinners Took the Team to a Lead of 1-0

England’s middle order failed to carry forward the momentum made by Alastair Cook and Haseeb Hameed resulting a 246 runs defeat against India in the second match of the England vs India 2016 test series at Visakhapatnam.

The 5th-day pitch that offered ample amount of turn and bounce to Indian spinners made sure that, the visitors batting order failed to take this match towards the draw and the Indian team is on their way to register a series win against England after eight years.

Trailing 405 runs on an Indian pitch was never an easy task and with the excellence of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, the target became impossible for England.

The visitors lost quick wickets on the 4th day and the final showdown started with a dull response from the inventors of the game. The 75 runs partnership between Alastair Cook and Haseeb Hameed was the only good thing that happened with England side as, after this, their batting order kneeled down in front of Indian spinners.

England needed to face 540 balls to either take the game towards a draw or an impossible win, but it turned out that Indian bowlers left no stone unturned to utilise these 540 balls to win the match. After the first wicket partnership, the rest of the batting lineup made only 83 runs, before going back to the pavilion. It was the dominance of Indian bowlers that took the team to the second-biggest win against England in terms of runs.

The early wicket acted as a performance booster for India but the team could have got a bigger breakthrough if Virat Kohli, could have caught the ball given by Joe Root on an Ashwin delivery at leg slip, earlier. Root also survived a caught behind decision overturned through DRS, against Ashwin and continued to defy India. Both Jadeja and Ashwin were getting help off the pitch, as a number of low balls were delivered to Root but he managed to keep them all out.

Due to the rough pitch, Jadeja got Moeen Ali, leading England to lose two wickets within the first hour. The finish line was getting further away from the visitors and the situation got worse as Jayant Yadav got Stokes who played the wrong line and turn, leading the ball to hit the stumps.

England had 64.2 overs to bat but their line up went back to dressing room within next 10 overs, all thanks to Jayant Yadav and R. Ashwin. India completed a much-deserved victory and took the lead by 1-0.

Ravichandran Ashwin and debutant Jayant Yadav were the highest wicket takers with 3 wickets each on their name. Mohammed Shami and Ravindra Jadeja took one less wicket each but were instrumental in keeping the opposition on backfoot.

Ashwin (55) also became the highest wicket taker in 2016 leaving Rangana Herath (54) behind.

Here are some of the tweets that showed the joy of Indian Cricket fans on England’s defeat:

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21 November 2016
Rohan Jaitly