India win second Test against England by 317 runs
Chennai: Exploiting the spin-friendly conditions, a dominant India thumped England by 317 runs in the second Test to level the four-match series 1-1, here on Tuesday.
India bundled out England for 164 in their second innings with more than four sessions to spare in the match.
The victory was crucial for India in the context of World Test Championship as they need to win the series at least with a 2-1 margin or better to make the cut for the title clash against New Zealand.
India had lost the opening Test at the same venue by a massive 227-run margin.
The Test series will now move to Ahmedabad where the third Test, which will be a day/night affair with pink ball, begins on February 24.
In pursuit of an improbable 482-run target on a difficult pitch, England began at the overnight score of 53 for three but their batsmen struggled to counter the spin challenge posed by the home bowlers.
Off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin (3/53) first sent back Dan Lawrence (26) and then removed Stokes (8) to add to the misery of the visitors.
Axar Patel (5/60) enticed a lofted sweep from Ollie Pope (12), who was caught by Ishant Sharma. Left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav got his first wicket when he had Ben Foakes (2) caught by Patel.
Skipper Joe Root (33) kept one end tight in the morning session but struggled to handle ball from Patel that bounced a bit too much and was caught in the slip region.
Once Root was back in the pavilion, it was not difficult for India to wrap up the proceedings though Moeen Ali hit an attacking 43.
Brief Scores:
India: 329 and 286 all out in 86.5 overs.
England: 134 and 164 in 54.2 overs (Moeen Ali 43, Joe Root 33, D Lawrence 26; Axar Patel 5/60, R Ashwin 3/53).
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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.
