Jasprit Bumrah, after breaking Brian Lara’s record with the bat, dismissed England opener Alex Lees before rain forced an early lunch. The hosts were 16/1 at the break
Jasprit Bumrah, after breaking Brian Lara’s record with the bat, dismissed England opener Alex Lees before rain forced an early lunch. The hosts were 16/1 at the break
England were 84 for five at stumps on the second day of the rain-hit rescheduled fifth Test against India here on Saturday.
Jonny Bairstow and skipper Ben Stokes were batting on 12 and 0 respectively with England still trailing India by 332 runs.
Ravindra Jadeja reaffirmed his status as India’s most valuable player across formats with a superbly crafted hundred before skipper Jasprit Bumrah took centre-stage, first smashing a world record and then blowing away England top-order on a rain-hit second day of the rescheduled fifth Test.
At tea, England were struggling at 60 for 3 as a nicely warmed-up Bumrah first castled opener Alex Lees (6) with a delivery that came in with the angle.
Then, in the post-lunch session, he got twice lucky as he removed Zak Crawley (9) and Ollie Pope (10) with the ‘seventh’ delivery of his third and sixth overs respectively.
Both were fuller deliveries which enticed the two right-handers to go for drives as Shubman Gill at third slip and Shreyas Iyer at second slip took regulation catches.
In-form batters Joe Root (19 batting) and Jonny Bairstow (6 batting) were at the crease when rain stopped play for the third time on the second day.
While he once again delivered with the ball but it was Bumrah (31 no, 16 balls) the batter whose fireworks will be remembered by the capacity Edgbaston crowd for the longest time as he smashed 29 runs off a Stuart Broad over.
In all, that over from Broad yielded 35 runs, including six extras.
In his first match at the helm as captain, Bumrah would have never thought that he would pip Brian Lara’s maximum runs (28 runs) in a single Test match over, which remained intact for 18 years.
The over Stuart Broad bowled to Jasprit Bumrah the batter. Photo: Twitter/@BCCI
Bumrah used the bat like a sword and even the edges seemed like “sweet spot” as he hit four boundaries and two sixes off Broad to give the hosts a dose of ‘Bazball’ (Brendon McCullum’s attacking philosophy), which had become a trending lingo in English cricket during the past few weeks.
While Rishabh Pant’s century for the ages and Jadeja’s third Test ton set up the platform, one can’t discount the 93 runs that India added with contributions from number 9, 10 and 11.
In the morning, Jadeja, was cautious as ever before deliberately guiding a Matthew Potts delivery with extra bounce over the slips for a boundary, and the second four was a lucky one that went over Joe Root in the slips.
A punchy drive through cover-point region got him his third century four months after he got the second one in Mohali.
This hundred, though, was of a far better quality, especially if one factors in the conditions, match situation and quality of opposition bowling.
Jadeja hit 13 boundaries, and his four and half hours stay at the wicket gave Pant an opportunity to play his natural attacking game, even as he dourly defended as and when required.
Having already scored 2500 runs in Test cricket alongside taking 242 wickets, Jadeja can safely be termed as the best all-rounder that the Indian team has had since the great Kapil Dev.
A Test batting average of 37 plus is better than many specialists who have played for India over the years.
As far as England’s bowling is concerned, James Anderson (5/60), who is a month shy of turning 40, is still peerless as he got his 32nd five-wicket haul while Broad completed a creditable feat of 550 Test victims.
But 40 extra runs, including 14 no balls, will certainly haunt England in the long run.
Scoreboard:
India 1st innings: Shubman Gill c Crawley b Anderson 17 Cheteshwar Pujara c Crawley b Anderson 13 Hanuma Vihari lbw b Potts 20 Virat Kohli b Potts 11 Rishabh Pant c Crawley b Root 146 Shreyas Iyer c Billings b Anderson 15 Ravindra Jadeja b James Anderson 104 Shardul Thakur c Billings b Stokes 1 Mohammed Shami c Jack Leach b Broad 16 Jasprit Bumrah not out 31 Mohammed Siraj c Broad b James Anderson 2
Extras: (B-4 LB-17, W-5, NB-14) 40
Total: (For 10 wickets in 84.5 overs) 416
Fall of wickets: 1-27 2-46 3-64 4-71 5-98 6-320 7-323, 8-371, 9-375
Bowling: James Anderson 21.5-4-60-5, Stuart Broad 18-3-89-1, Matthew Potts 20-1-105-2, Jack Leach 9-0-71-0, Ben Stokes 13-0-47-1, Joe Root 3-0-23-1.
England 1st Innings: Alex Lees b Bumrah 6 Zak Crawley c Shubman Gill b Bumrah 9 Ollie Pope c Shreyas Iyer b Bumrah 10 Joe Root c Pant b Siraj 31 Jonny Bairstow not out 12 Jack Leach c Pant b Shami 0 Ben Stokes batting 0
Total: (For 5 wkts, 27 Overs) 84
Fall of Wickets: 1-16, 2-27, 3-44, 4-78, 5-83
India bowling: Jasprit Bumrah 11-1-35-3, Mohammed Shami 13-3-33-1, Mohammed Siraj 3-2-5-1