IND win the match by 106 runs, level the series 1-1 with England

India won the second Test at the ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Vishakhapatnam by 106 runs to level the series at 1-1. The two teams will now meet in Rajkot for the 3rd Test, which is expected to be another exciting encounter given the history of the last two matches.

Opener Zack Crawley and nightwatchman Rehan Ahmed started the fourth day’s play for England against Jasprit Bumrah and Axar Patel and needed 332 runs to win the match, but the total of 399 proved too much for England.

After being hammered by Ahmed, Axar dismissed the lower-order batsman for 23 to give India their first breakthrough of the day. England, however, continued to set the tempo, scoring at around 5 an over throughout the first session. Ollie Pope began his innings on an aggressive note, hitting Axar Patel for a boundary and maintaining a strike rate of over 100 throughout his innings.

Ollie Pope was also eventually dismissed when he tried to play a shot off Ashwin and was caught at slip by skipper Rohit Sharma. Meanwhile, Joe Root started his innings in a similar fashion, hitting Ashwin for two boundaries off the reverse sweep in the first three balls of his innings. Root was eventually dismissed for 16 when he tried to step out of his crease to hit Ashwin for a big shot.

Just before Lunch, India tilted the game in their favour with two crucial wickets of Jonny Bairstow and well-set Zack Crawley and two new batters were forced to take the crease in the second session of the day.

After Lunch, Skipper Ben Stokes and Ben Foakes seemed to be making themselves comfortable at the crease in the 2nd session of the day when a direct hit from Shreyas Iyer put an end to Stokes’ innings. Meanwhile, Foakes and Tom Hartley stitched together an over 50 run partnership to give a fickle of a hope to England but the English innings fell apart quickly after the wicket of Ben Foakes.

Earlier in the game, India managed to score 255 runs in their 2nd innings on the back of a brilliant century from Shubman Gill while there were some important contributions from Shreyas Iyer and Axar Patel. Gill hit 11 fours and 2 sixes. Shubman Gill is now the third Indian to score a century playing at number 3 after 2018.

Even prior to that, Indian bowlers led by Jasprit Bumrah’s ‘Sixfer’, dominated the DAY 2 play and restricted the visitors on a score of 255, taking a lead of 143 runs which proved to be crucial in the game.

For England Tom Hartley picked 4 wickets, Rehan Ahmed took 3 and James Anderson took 2 wickets. Debutant Shoaib Bashir clinched 1 wicket in the second innings.