Credit: BCCI
On Sunday, July 13, the fourth day of the third Test match in the five-match series between England and India was a pulsating affair from start to finish with the ball dominating the bat at Lord’s in London. With the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy levelled at 1-1, India found themselves 58/4 in their second innings in pursuit of the 193-run target at stumps on day four after bowling England out for 192 runs in their second innings.
The play on day four in the Lord’s Test began with England 2/0 in their second innings after India had managed to score 387 runs in their first innings last evening, to restore parity in the contest. In the first session, the Indian pacers bowled exceptionally well, making it quite difficult for the England batters to stay at the crease for any length of time with Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, and Zak Crawley losing their wickets cheaply one after another.
While Jasprit Bumrah didn’t have any wicket-taking luck in the first session despite inducing a lot of false strokes, the other three Indian pacers, including Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, and Nitish Kumar Reddy found their names on the scoreboard. The battle between Akash Deep and Harry Brook was quite a theatre with the batter ramping him twice in two balls for fours, but in the next over, losing his stumps while attempting the same stroke.
During the second session, Joe Root and England captain Ben Stokes put together a 67-run stand for the fifth wicket, to bring their team back into the contest. But then, Washington Sundar cleaned up Joe Root in his attempt to sweep the ball on 40 off 96, which opened an end up for India, leading to the same bowler shattering the stumps of Jamie Smith early into his innings with a peach of a delivery.
The third session began with Sundar cleaning up Stokes, whose attempt at the sweep shot against the spin wasn’t worthwhile either after scoring 30 off 96. Following that, Jasprit Bumrah returned to the attack for yet another spell, and he immediately sent Brydon Carse back into the pavilion with an exceptional yorker at the popping crease taking out the leg stump, to earn his first wicket of the day.
Bumrah also cleaned up Chris Woakes with an inswinging delivery just after taking treatment on his right calf issue from the physio, and a few overs later, Washington Sundar took his fourth wicket, going through the defence of Shoaib Bashir to ensure that England were bowled out for 192 runs in 62.1 overs. In pursuit of the 193-run target to take a 2-1 lead in the five-match Test series, India didn’t have a good start as Yashasvi Jaiswal lost his wicket without troubling the scorers on the bowling of Jofra Archer.
KL Rahul and Karun Nair shared a 36-run stand for the second wicket to bring some calm to the proceedings before the latter shouldered arms to a ball moving in off the pitch from Brydon Carse, to lose his wicket against the run of play. Shortly after, Carse trapped Indian captain Shubman Gill in front of the stumps for six runs, and then, Ben Stokes cleaned up the nightwatchman Akash Deep to reduce India to 58/4, still needing a further 135 runs to secure victory.
