1st Test, Day 4: Imposing Joe Root, stellar Jasprit Bumrah set up cracking final day

A splendid century from Joe Root and a magnificent five-wicket haul from Jaspirt Bumrah has set up an enthralling final day of the first Test between India and England. At the stumps of day four, India were 52 at the loss of KL Rahul’s wicket, who became Stuart Broad’s first wicket of the game until now.

They are chasing a target of 209 runs which could well turn out to be a tricky one on the final day against the likes of James Anderson, Broad and Ollie Robinson.

Earlier, the day began on India in the ascendency with a lead of 70 runs as England openers started off the proceedings for the hosts. India struck two blows before the hosts could reach the 50-run mark but a fluent century from Root put the game back in balance.

Joe Root stamps his authority

When England skipper walked out to bat in the afternoon session, England were still behind in the game by 49 runs. The situation could have been a tricky one for him as his partner Dom Sibley was batting in his usual style.

Root has had to make a choice of either attacking the Indian bowling attack to get England going in pursuit of surpassing the lead, or soaking all the pressure that leading an underperforming England batting group brought for him against a relentless Indian attack.

The skipper chose former and started playing fire with fire as Indian pacers went fuller length against him. He was was on the go and drive away fuller deliveries to the fence without having a second thought while playing fluent cover drives one after another.

The innings was full of lustrous strokes that went on to re-establish Root’s calibre as a top batsman on the intentional stage. He was eager to take the game to the Indian camp and went back to the pavilion only after handing England a sizeable lead to defend on the final day.

Jasprit Bumrah is back

Jasprit Bumrah bagged his sixth five-wicket haul in Test cricket and his nine-wicket haul across the two innings would have come as a massive respite for Kohli. He was going off-colour in the time leading up to the Test series against England was proven ineffective in the World Test Championship final against New Zealand.

He was on the top of his game on the fourth day and it was necessary for him to deliver as both Mohammed Shami and Mohammed Siraj were not able to stand up tall in the second innings. They leaked too many boundaries in search of glory balls but Bumrah was up to the task and wiped out the lower half of the England batting in a jiffy.

He was swinging the ball away from the right-hander thought the innings and his delivery to send Root back to the pavilion was his announcement of revival on the big stage.

Kohli and India’s inflexible approach

When Joe Root came out to bat, India were operating with Mohammed Siraj from one end. He was not bowling badly and had picked up the big wicket of Rory Burns with the new ball.

Kohli made a conscious decision to promote Siraj with the new ball in place of Shami, who was not bad in the first innings with the new ball. The move paid dividends as Burns edged one to Rishabh Pant behind the wicket.

However, he started losing his rhythm and larger goal and kept on bowling fuller length balls to Root in search of swing. Both he and Kohli should have understood that the balls were not swinging at that stage and that they had to switch to bowling hard length.

Kohli erred on bowling changes once again by elongating the length of Siraj’s spell when Shardul Thakur should have been tried from his end to see if he could bowl length outside off stump.

When he was finally brought into the attack, he proved his worth by taking the wicket of Dan Lawrence and Jos Buttler, who fell victim of indecision due to bowling in the channel around off stump.

Looking ahead to the final day

India are 157 runs away from the target with nine wickets remaining. 

The approach of Cheteshwar Pujara, who smashed the last ball of the day to cover the boundary for a four with a smashing cover drive is anything to go by, India will come hunting for the target tomorrow.

They should be confident of chasing the target down with the likes of Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma and Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja in the batting lineup.

Three years back, they fell short of the target under 200 runs by 30 odd runs as none except Virat Kohli could stand up to England bowling. India will be hoping for a better result this time around to win the first Test of the series and put England under real pressure going forward.