RAJKOT: India achieved the primary targets of denying England too many wickets in the opening session and inching closer to the mark of 537 on Saturday morning. At lunch on Day 4, they were 411/6, 126 short of England’s total, but within touching distance of a position that can be called safe.
It didn’t start the way the hosts would have liked, as they lost the last pair of specialist batsmen with lots of time remaining for England to push for a win. Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane looked in control of the situation against pace and spin and would regret the way they got out in conditions still conducive for high scoring. Ravichandran Ashwin and Wriddhiman Saha prevented further damage to make sure their opponents didn’t make most of the opening they created.
Rahane was the first to fall in the morning, when he tried a fancy, off-the-pads shot off Zafar Ansari. He had cut the left-arm spinner for four the previous ball and stayed back again to a ball that would have been better dealt with on the front foot. He missed the line as the ball sneaked in unchallenged to hit the stumps. Rahane was looking good during his brief stay that produced 13 off 30 balls.
Kohli was in imperious mood and dominating everything the pace-spin combination had to offer. Unafraid to pull when Chris Woakes bowled short with two men catching deep behind square on the leg side, the captain was fluent driving when Stuart Broad pitched it up. With the pitch good for batting, he was looking set for a big one.
It was perhaps the feel-good factor that caused a bit of complacency in Kohli’s mind. Too sure of what he was doing and of what to do, he went an inch too deep into the crease trying to pull Adil Rashid. Although bat made connection with ball, so did the back leg with the stumps, just firm enough to dislodge one bail. Kohli’s 40 off 95 balls had five fours.
Trailing by 176 and almost two days remaining, it was important for India to forge another partnership and occupy crease for as long as possible. Despite not looking confident initially, wicketkeeper Saha survived the hard minutes and kept Ashwin company in an unattractive but crucial seventh-wicket partnership of 50.
Brief scores: England 537 vs India 411/6 (Vijay 126, Pujara 124, Kohli 40, Ashwin 29 no, Saha 29 no).