3rd Test Report: Root's England succumb to wily Ashwin, accurate Axar in contest of bowlers

Ravichandran Ashwin gets to 400 Test wickets; second fastest after Muralitharan

Ravichandran Ashwin became the fourth Indian bowler to pick up 400 Test wickets. The off-spinner came into the third Test against England at 394 wickets in the longest format of the game and picked up three wickets in the first innings. He reached the special milestone with the wicket of Jofra Archer on the second day of the Pink-Ball Test at Motera. He is the second-fastest man to reach the milestone of 400 Test wickets after Muttiah Muralidharan who had registered as many wickets in 72 games in whites. Ashwin has taken 29 five-wicket hauls in Tests innings and seven ten-wicket hauls in Tests. Ravichandran Ashwin became the fourth Indian bowler to pick up 400 Test wickets. The off-spinner came into the third Test against England at 394 wickets in the longest format of the game and picked up three wickets in the first innings. He reached the special milestone with the wicket of Jofra Archer on the second day of the Pink-Ball Test at Motera. He is the second-fastest man to reach the milestone of 400 Test wickets after Muttiah Muralitharan who had registered as many wickets in 72 games in whites. Ashwin has taken 29 five-wicket hauls in Tests innings and seven ten-wicket hauls in Tests. He now stands behind only Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh among Indian spinners who have taken 400 or more wickets in Tests. Harbhajan scalped 417 wickets from 103 Test matches, while Anil Kumble is miles ahead of both of them with 619 wickets in a 132 Test matches long career.

NZ vs AUS | 2nd T20: Guptill, Neesham help Blackcaps overpower Stoinis-Sams onslaught

New Zealand held onto their nerves in the wake of brutal counterattacking innings from Marcus Stoinis and Daniel Sams and registered a win by the barest of margin in the second T20 of the series in Dunedin. For the hosts, the heroes were Martin Guptill and James Neesham who provided blitz with the bat in the first innings while the latter came back to leave his mark on the day with the ball and got the better of heroes in the opposition camps in the form of Stoinis and Sams just when the game was hanging on the edge. The Blackcaps now lead the five-match series by 2-0 and the tourists have their task cut out to win all of the last three games of the series to win the trophy back home. Chasing a mammoth target of 220 runs, Australia were off to a better start compared to the last game as both Aron Finch and Matthew Wade put on a decent partnership of 34 runs from three and a half overs. Wade was going berserk from the one end, while Finch’s slump with the bat continued and he could not get going once again. Wade was severe on anything short bowled at him, but the struggle of Finch at the other end forced him to keep going for boundaries almost every ball and he perished in the process. On the other end, Finch’s misery was cut short by Ish Sodhi whose good moments in the game were about to get over towards the end. Josh Phillipe did not waste the opportunity to impress one and all after missing out in the first game, and started timing shots in the same manner he has been doing in the Big Bash League that paved the way for his entry into the Australia T20 team. He hit three sixes in his 32-ball-45, and two out of them were picturesque. Australia must have been disappointed by another low score from Glenn Maxwell and his absence from the middle order in terms of runs derailed the tourists’ effort of chasing down the target of 220 runs. While Ish Sodhi struggled with the onslaught from the Australians, Mitchell Santner owned the stage. He broke the back of the Australian batting order with big wickets of Phillipe, Ashton Agar and Mitchell Marsh in a single over and put a big question mark on the tourists’ spirit in Dunedin. When Marsh walked off the field at the end of the 13th over, Australia were in disarray, needing 107 runs from the last 42 balls and the story seemed to be over for them. However, Stoinis and Sams had other ideas and they started taking the game into the Blackcaps’ camp. They got stuck into Sodhi and Southee and plundered them for 20 runs and 25 runs in the 15th and 16th overs respectively. Stoinis was brutal in his power game and pulled everything that was pitched away from his arc over the leg side fence. Sams did not hold back and match Stoinis shots by shots and the duo started hunting the Kiwis down over by over and the effect of the onslaught was telling on the hosts’ bowling line up. The duo was relentless and did not allow any bowler to get away unscathed from their hammerings and they cut down the improbable task fo 107 runs from 42 balls to 15 runs off the last six balls. The task was not impossible especially the momentum Stoinis and Sams were riding on, but the day belonged to James Neesham who could do no wrong today and he dismissed Sams on a ranked full toss to start the 20th over. He went on to account for Stoinis as well, and Blackcaps could manage to finish the fiery resistance from the Australian to go 2-0 up. Earlier in the day, Finch won the toss and asked the hosts to bat first on a pitch that promised some assistance to seamers with the new ball. Martin Guptill was under pressure coming into this game, but showed no signs of vulnerability and looked in good touch at the start of the innings against his nemesis in the last game-- Daniel Sams. When Jhye Richardson was called up by Finch to challenge Guptill’s footwork in the third over, he was greeted with signature shots as Guptill planted his foot down the pitch of the ball to hit him over the top of his head for a monstrous six. Guptill was up and running but his partner at the other Tim Seiffert could not get going and Australia tasted early success. Finch found Guptill comfortable against pace and brought on Ashton Agar to take the pace off the ball, but Guptill was in a complete unforgiving mood today and his first over yielded 15 runs. Agar’s spinning partner--Adam Zampa was welcomed in a similar fashion by Guptill and two colossal sixes into the car parking outside the stadium to reach fifty in 27 balls were the signs of Guptill’s comeback in top form. Looking at Guptill going for glory at the other end, Williamson too decided to shift gears and they started to despatch Australian bowlers over the park to reach the 100-mark bu the end of the 11th over. Guptill did not let the pressure of nearing a century and kept coming at the bowlers, but ultimately succumbed in the process. His departure from the field did not provide any respite to the tourists as James Neesham took off from the same point where he had left. Both Richardsons-- Jhye and Kane tried their best to bring Australia back in the game on the back of three big wickets of Devon Conway, Glenn Phillips and Mitchell Santner in quick successions, but Australia’s hopes of owning the control of the game were put to rest by Neesham. Australia fought well to challenge New Zealand in pursuit of big runs, but Finch will be realistic to recognise the lack of discipline shown by his bowlers while the top order batsmen including himself have found it tough to get going at top of the order. They need to make amends in the next game otherwise the series will be gone before it finishes and the path of preparation towards the T20 World Cup scheduled to take place in India later this year will hit a major roadblock.

Prithvi Shaw comes back in form, hits maiden double century in List A career

After suffering a setback in the form of omission from the Indian Test team, Prithvi Shaw has struck a magnificent double-century against Puducherry in the ongoing Vijay Hazare Trophy. Shaw has been captaining the Mumbai team in the tournament and struck 31 boundaries and five sixes and piled on belligerent 227 runs remaining unbeaten after 152 balls. Riding on his double century and an equally dominating innings (58-ball-133) from Suryakumar Yadav Mumbai put on a mammoth 457 runs from 50 overs, the fourth-highest total in List A Cricket Shaw became only the seventh Indian batsman after Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Sanju Samson and Yashasvi Jaiswal to have scored a double century in List A games. He has been in red-hot form in the tournament and the double century was his second three-figure score in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. Earlier, He had scored a century that helped his side register a big win over Delhi.

3rd Test Day 1 Report: Axar, Rohit put scarred England to sword on fast-moving day at Motera

Although the action in the ongoing Test series between India and England moved from South India to the Western part of the country, the sides looked to be still stuck in the past developments. However, the thing of the past turned out to be disastrous for England, while a similar script helped India dominate the proceedings on the first day of the third Test at the newly named Narendra Modi Stadium in Motera. For India, the weapons of attack did not change as Rohit piled on another masterclass with an unbeaten half-century before Axar Patel ran riots among the English batsmen playing for the first time at his home ground as England looked scared of playing spin after facing a humbling defeat at the Chepauk last week. India will be disappointed letting England get back in the game on the back of skipper Virat Kohli’s wicket at the fag end of the day, but a deficit of only 13 runs and having seven wickets in their hands does not augur alarming for them going into the second day. However, they will need to avert the mishaps of batting collapse which ruined their chances from a similar position they found themselves in during their last Pink-Ball Test in Australia. England were left seething with some calls from umpires not going their way in the last Test and Joe Root and his senior teammates finally had enough of their patience on miscommunication between the umpires. Very early into the Indian innings, Shubman Gill edged one off Broad and Ben Stokes claimed a catch that was dying on him. On-field umpire Anil Chaudhary signalled out in his soft signal in consultation with the square leg umpire Nitin Menon, but the third umpire Shamsuddin found the ball touching the ground while Stokes was trying hard to grasp on the first replay and overruled the on-field soft signal. An embarrassed Stokes was left smiling and clapping for reasons known to only himself, but the tension in the English camps due to poor communication between the umpires was past the optimum level and it appeared on TV that Root made a point clear to the umpires that there were not enough shreds of evidence to overrule the on-field call and that the protocol was hasty before reaching a conclusion. But the reprieve to Gill did not cost England too much as probably for the first time in his short career the right-hander looked out of touch. He was getting caught in the crease by both Anderson and Broad, and when Archer offered him short balls, his eyes lit up to latch on to it. He got greedy and perished in the process that brought Cheteshwar Pujara to the middle who has hit a surprising slump in scoring although not looking out of form. Pujara has been a master of picking the line and lengths of spinners and he generally deals spinners proactively, at least on Indian pitches but Jack Leach seems to have got his number in this series. He was outfoxed by the left-arm spinner in both the Tests at Chepauk and the story was similar in Ahmedabad as well when he was caught plumb in front of the sumps against one that did not turn. More worryingly for Pujara, he was way off the mark in terms of picking the line of the ball and was beaten all ends up by Leach. The pitch was turning for the spinners, but a lot of wickets that fell on the first day should be attributed to batsmen thinking a lot about the threat of spinning balls, instead of playing one at a time on merit and watching the ball closely. Contrasting views, contrasting fate Apart from the contrasting fate the sides had at the end of the first day’s play, there was a clear and early indication of complete contrast in their views about the pitch and playing conditions as well. However, the thought process can be deemed similar for both sides and think tanks relied on their best attack, albeit not necessarily as per the conditions on offer at the Motera stadium. While the Virat Kohli-led India looked at the pitch to be another spin-friendly while also acknowledging the help the pacers might get in the air under the lights and persisted with a three spinner-two pacer bowling attack, Root’s England banked on the pacers to get the best out of the conditions with the bank ball in their hands. The jury was out even before the first ball was bowled in the third Test on the question of who among the two sides got their selection right, and it would be fair to say that Kohli’s decision has been ratified by his bowlers. However, Root’s dilemma of not relying on an inconsistent Dominic Bess and relying on the pacers to challenge India under lights can’t be blamed with the benefit of hindsight. Indian spinners were as accurate as they were in the second Test and kept asking tough questions to England batters on a pitch that offered enough natural variations to deny them any freedom to get out of asphyxiation at the crease. Ashwin was more into trying new things, but he was relentless with his consistency and the straighter lines from the round the wicket angle paid dividends with the big wickets of Joe Root and Ollie Pope. Root was guilty of misjudging the length on one of the rarest occasions on a longish tour to the sub-continent and Ashwin could turn one past the inside edge of his bat to send tremors in the English dressing room. Ollie Pope has been rated very highly by the team management and there has been some talk that he is Joe Root in making, but he has looked all over the place in the two and a half Tests he has played on this tour. Ashwin’s natural variation from round the wicket angle was too good for him and his stumps were rattled while he had committed himself on the front foot in hope for an off-spinning delivery. India had dropped Kuldeep Yadav for Washington Sundar in pursuit of more cushioning in the batting department considering the extra level of threat that the pink ball brings with itself, but he was not required at all on the first day. There are days when the stuff of people’s dreams start to take shape in front of their eyes and that too at a very pleasing rate. For Axar Patel, the first day’s play was one such day and he might well be forgiven for thinking temporarily that the success in Test cricket that every pundits rate so highly is not that tougher to achieve. He claimed another fifer— second in as many Tests and the grand spectacle of a Pink Ball Test at his home must have sweetened the deal for him. Kohli was proactive to see England's game plan in dropping Rory Burns and packing the top order with right-handers in order to combat the threat of Ashwin and unleashed Axar just after the sixth over to defeat the tourists in their own tactics. He repaid the faith with the very first ball of his second Test, and Bairstow could not get going after making his comeback from a break. Bairstow, like Pujara, played for the turn and the ball kept going on with the arm to trap him LBW. Axar went on to pick five more wickets, and all of them came in a similar fashion as England batsmen were made to look like searching for spin on the ball when there were none. Joe Root had shown them a method of scoring runs —sweeping against spinners, but the pace at which Axar bowls does not allow batsmen to get down on one knee. The fact that English batsmen are not as nimble-footed as Rohit Sharma is to put off spinners from their lengths make them ideal candidates for arm balls as they keep fending from the crease. England made some selection errors as they picked a team for a Pink-Ball Test and completely overlooked the surface they were to play on, but a frank assessment by the think tank will lay the blame on batsmen for capitulating against India on the first day itself. They will be in hope of some magical spell of bowling from their pacers and will try to emulate their arch-rivals in Australia to skittle India down on the second day afternoon. However, they have their tasks cut out with Rohit Sharma looking ominous at one end, and the likes of Rahane and Rishabh Pant to follow in the batting order.