England lose Burns first ball after India concede 241-run first-innings lead
Chennai: Off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin struck with the very first ball of second innings as England survived two testing overs before lunch on the fourth day of the opening Test against India after securing a first-innings lead of 241 runs.
Refusing to enforce the follow-on, the visitors were 1/1 in two overs at the break after bowling out India for 337 in their first innings.
Ashwin, opening the bowling in the second innings, got one to turn and bounce and had Rory Burns (0) edging to Ajinkya Rahane at first slip.
Responding to England's mammoth 578, India were all out in 95.5 overs and fell well short of the follow-on target despite Washington Sundar's fighting knock of 85.
Rishabh Pant (91) and Cheteshwar Pujara (73) have been India's other major contributors.
For England, Dom Bess was the most successful bowler with 4 for 77 while James Anderson (2/46), Jofra Archer (2/75) and Jack Leach (2/105) got two wickets each.
Local player Washington missed out on what would have been a well-deserved maiden Test hundred after hitting 12 fours and two fine sixes and sharing an invaluable partnership of 80 runs for the seventh wicket.
Washington was left stranded when Jasprit Bumrah was superbly caught in the slips by Ben Stokes to give Anderson his second wicket and signal the end of India's innings.
Leach, who take a hammering at the hands of Pant on Sunday, broke the stubborn Washington-Ashwin partnership when he had the latter caught by 'keeper Jos Buttler diving forward after the ball came off the glove.
Ashwin made a patient 31 and, along with Washington, helped India defy the England bowlers for a long period.
India resumed the day at 257 for 6.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
