England and Alastair Cook produced yet another poor performance as the Second Test against India went from being firmly in the balance to being an almost guaranteed India win, barring weather conditions, in the space of a single day.
India began the day 169-4, 145 ahead and if England were able to take inspiration from Liam Plunkett’s wickets towards the end of the previous day then the match would have been England’s to lose. However, once again England failed to dismiss the tail as India went from 235-7 to 342 all-out, leaving England a very difficult 319 to win. Ravi Jadeja produced one of the most exciting Test innings imaginable as he smashed 68 off 57 balls, celebrating with an exuberant celebration, where he flashed his bat around like a word, as he went past his fifty. Bhuvneshwar Kumar hit his second fifty in second successive matches; becoming the third man to get a fifty and take a five wicket-haul in successive Test matches in history.
When England came into bat, although opener Sam Robson fell for seven things looked promising for England as Gary Ballance and Alastair Cook started a very promising partnership. It looked like Alastair Cook might finally hit a decent score again and Gary Ballance might continue his good form. However, England’s hopes were dashed in the form of a middle-order collapse as always as Ballance fell for 27 then, after Bell was bowled by an absolute jaffer from Ishant Sharma, Cook went for 22 after playing a very silly shot. Joe Root and Moeen Ali managed to survive for the rest of the day but it doesn’t look like tomorrow will be an easy ride as nearly every single ball bowled by the never ending supply of Indian spinners seemed to get very close to a wicket.
India will most likely seal one of their most impressive wins in recent years tomorrow; a young, inexperienced-particularly in England-squad performing so well on such a non-Indian wicket is admirable. However, England’s performance has been anything but so far and it seems the long line of disappointments in English Cricket since last summer doesn’t seem to be ending any time soon.
Having said that there is still an outside chance of England performing an absolute miracle tomorrow and avoiding defeat; then there’s everything to play for in the final two tests of this series.
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