Anderson, Broad have India closing towards follow on

Tags: India tour of England, 2014, England Vs India, 3rd Test at Southampton - Jul 27-31, 2014, James Michael Anderson

Published on: Jul 29, 2014

Scorecard | Commentary | Graphs

England are well set to win the Third Test at Southampton after reducing India to 323 for 8 during the crucial third day’s play.

By BV Swagath

England are well set to win the Third Test at Southampton after reducing India to 323 for 8 during the crucial third day’s play. The tourists still need 46 more runs to score to avoid the follow on. They trail by a huge deficit of 246 runs with just Skipper MS Dhoni surviving the day’s play amongst he batsmen.

Dhoni is batting on 50 (from 103 balls) and it will all be on him to save the follow-on for India tomorrow and also kill some time in the match along with the no.10 and no.11.

India looked alright in the afternoon session with Ajinkya Rahane and Rohit Sharma putting up a fighting stand. However, Rohit Sharma threw it away when he attempted a needless big shot off Moeen Ali to get caught at mid off for 28. Earlier in the session, Virat Kohli (39) was sucked into poking outside off to a short of length delivery from Anderson to edge one to slips.

It wasn’t all bad at 214 for 5 when the final session started. But with Ajinkya Rahane falling early through a miscued pull off Moeen Ali, India was back in trouble. Rahane hardly made any mistake before that in his knock of 54 with 5 fours. The visitors got some shape to their innings thanks to a fine partnership between Ravindra Jadeja and MS Dhoni. A late inswinger from Anderson ended Jadeja’s cameo of 31.

Before stumps, Broad got a sharp inducker to have Bhuvneshwar Kumar (19) get a bad pad inside edge to the slips.

Update at Lunch on Day 3: Pressure continues to be on India in the 3rd Test after the visitors lost two key wickets in the morning session on Day three. At lunch, the tourists are trailing behind by as many as 461 runs with all hopes on Virat Kohli (18*) and Ajinkya Rahane (11*).

A fourth wicket was to fall down before lunch when Ajiknya Rahane had gloved a turning ball from Moeen Ali to the keeper down the legside but Umpire Rod Tucker gave the batsman not out.

England’s first success of the morning came from a superb short ball from Stuart Broad which jagged back a long way from outside off to kiss the glove of Cheteshwar Pujara (24) who was swaying away from it. Murali Vijay was next to depart when he looked to leave a short of length ball from Broad quite late to end up bottom edging it on to the stumps.

Vijay was looking to play his shots and got himself 35 before the indecisive moment against Broad. The good thing about the morning session for India was Virat Kohli batting out solidly and striking the ball confidently. India at lunch are 108 for 3 in 40 overs.

Related News