India vs England, 3rd Test, Day Three: After Lower Order’s Resistance, Ashwin Overshadowed the Opposition

India maintained its grip in the 3rd Test Match against England after the spinners performed well with both ball and the bat. R.Ashwin, Jadeja and Jayant Yadav, the spinning trio, contributed some result defining runs in the scoreboard resulting in a 134 run trail for England.

Jayant Yadav scored his maiden fifty in this match and the player is slowly and gradually becoming an integral part of the Indian Test squad. Ravichandran Ashwin, on the other hand, became the first player to claim 50+ wickets in a calendar year, while contributing 500 runs in the batting order.

England side has been struggling to perform on the Indian soil and their battle with the pitch continued in this match too. It is getting hard for the British to anticipate the bounce and turn of the pitch and the likes of R.Ashwin are making the matter worse for the visitors.

Ashwin claimed the first wicket of the innings by dismissing Alastair Cook (12) on a ball that the latter had no answer to and the bails came off. Moments later, Joe Root was subjected to leg before on Ashwin’s delivery and the decision went to the Reeving System. DRS took a decade to answer the query and the decision came in the favor of Root, much to Indian teams’ anger.

The wait transpired in the decade-old debate about whether DRS should be opted by the BCCI or not. However, going by the recent developments, Decision Reviewing system may not be seen from the next series involving India.

Read Also: DRS Trolls Indian Team and Twitter Took no Time to Back the No.1 Team

Moeen Ali became the next victim of Ashwin’s greatness as the former give an easy catch to Jayant Yadav on Ashwin’s delivery after making a mere 5 runs.

Jonny Bairstow came to the crease and his partnership with Joe Root was turning out to be a turning point of the match. Jayant Yadav, the star in making, came to the rescue of his team and delivered an off spin to Bairstow (15), the latter giving an easy catch behind the wicket to Parthiv Patel.

The visitors made only 8 runs before R.Ashwin again came to haunt them and this time his prey was Ben Stokes. Ashwin had a huge responsibility on his shoulder’s after Ben Stokes mocked the Indian Captain on the previous day and the star bowler pleased Kohli by claiming Stokes’ wicket with the latter registering a mere 5 runs on his name. Virat Kohli took his time and gave a befitting response to Stoke by putting his finger on the lips and saying everything without opening his mouth.

Joe Root is showing some resistance to the Indian bowlers and was still present at the crease at stumps. On the Fourth Day, Gareth Betty will accompany him to the crease with England still trailing by 56 runs.

Here are some of the records that were made today.

1.This was the first time that the No.7, No.8, and No.9 Indian batsmen scored a fifty each.
2.Jonny Bairstow became the first wicketkeeper to register 68 dismissals in a calendar year, Ian Healy (1993) and Mark Boucher (1998) being on the second position with 67 dismissals on their name.
3.Ravindra Jadeja recorded his career best batting with 90 runs in tests.

The match may go for a draw, if not in India’s favor and for that, the England batting order has to play a calm and composed innings on the fourth day. Otherwise, India will for sure claim a lead of 2-0 in this series.

At Stumps: England 283 & 78/4 (Joe Root 36*; R Ashwin 3-19) trail India by 56 runs.

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28 November 2016
Rohan Jaitly