Rajkot, Feb 16 Openers Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley were steady in taking England to 31/0 in six overs and trail by 414 runs at tea on day two of the third Test after bowling out India for 445 in their first innings at the Niranjan Shah Stadium on Friday.
England were 6/0 even before a legal ball was sent down: five runs came from the penalty which came after India ran on the danger area of the pitch while batting, with the one run coming from Jasprit Bumrah bowling a no-ball.
Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj, who was fine to bowl after suffering from a blow on the right knee during the batting innings, found a bit of movement with the new ball to beat Duckett and Crawley.
While Crawley is not out on six, Duckett was severe with his cut, drives and punches to be unbeaten on 19 off 22 balls.
Earlier, Ravichandran Ashwin (37) and Dhruv Jurel (46) added 77 runs for the eighth-wicket stand, followed by Bumrah making 26 at the end to take India to a strong total of 445 in 130.5 overs.
Post lunch, Ashwin continued to get boundaries via on-drive and glance, even as Jurel was dropped twice on 32 by Ollie Pope at mid-wicket and by Ben Stokes at leg-slip. England finally held on to a chance when Ashwin miscued a loft off Rehan Ahmed and was caught by a forward-diving mid-on.
Jurel delighted with his sixes over mid-wicket and mid-off, but his attempt to go for a late-cut against a flatter and wide delivery from Ahmed resulted in Foakes taking a brilliant low catch. Bumrah sparkled with his slogs over mid-on yielding a four and six, followed by beautiful lofted drive over cover for a boundary.
Siraj was hit on the top of his knee while going for a reverse-sweep off Tom Hartley, and changed the out decision to not-out via DRS. In the next over, he again got treatment from the physio due to the pain from the blow on the knee. Wood then trapped Bumrah lbw with a slower delivery to end India’s innings and finish with a four-fer.
Brief Scores: India 445 in 130.5 overs (Rohit Sharma 131, Ravindra Jadeja 112; Mark Wood 4-114, Rehan Ahmed 2-85) lead England 31/0 in six overs (Ben Duckett 19 not out, Zak Crawley 6 not out) by 414 runs
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