India struggle to 257/6 at stumps on Day 3, trail England by 321 runs
Chennai, Feb 7: Rishabh Pant's beautiful edge-of-the-seat hitting ended with his now customary indiscretion, putting India under the pump against a supremely confident England gunning for victory at the end of third day's play in the opening Test here on Sunday.
At stumps, India were 257 for 6 in reply to England's massive first innings score of 578 with 122 runs still needed to avoid the follow-on after Pant (91 off 88 balls) and Cheteshwar Pujara (73 off 143 balls) added 119 runs for the fifth wicket.
Washington Sundar (33 batting, 68 balls), primarily a batsman converted into specialist off-spinner, was trying to make amends for his poor show with the ball in company of Ravichandran Ashwin (8 batting, 54 balls), who is never tired of a good on-field scrap, at stumps.
With a couple of days' play still left, it will be interesting to see if England team management decides to give its bowlers some respite if it gets a chance to enforce the follow-on.
The day belonged to the current toast of the Indian team, Pant, who smashed five towering sixes -- all in the arc between long-on and deep mid-wicket off left-arm spinner Jack Leach (17-2-94-0). Leach didn't exactly know what had hit him.
Sourav Ganguly treated left-arm spinners with disdain but what Pant showed on Sunday was more of pure, unadulterated contempt.
Leach wanted to target the rough outside Pant's off-stump but every time he tossed it up, the stocky man from Rourkee came out like a raging bull who had been shown the red rag and hit the spinner with the turn into the Chepauk stands.
He dazzled with his brilliance and then in an annoying manner, forgot that discretion is always the better part of valour while trying to hit off-spinner Dom Bess (23-5-55-4) over extra cover against the spin.
This was after dispatching England's most successful bowler to the square leg boundary.
And he found the only man stationed at the deep extra cover -- none other than Leach, who latched onto it as if his life depended on it.
It was an innings that can evoke different emotions depending on one's own perception of Pant.
A Pant fan who loves his craft will feel an overriding sense of joy and exhilaration just seeing him hit Leach for four sixes few minutes after India were down and out at 73 for 4. Or just smack James Anderson through the cover region.
If one is talking about a Test cricket fan then exasperation can take over just thinking about the possibilities had he decided to exercise some caution. Pant has quite literally thrown away Test hundreds four times in his short career.
But then that's Pant. There won't be any middle path and perhaps the Indian team management will now try to mould itself rather than trying to change him which obviously didn't work for both parties.
Just like they don't want to change Cheteshwar Pujara, whose 73 off 143 balls over nearly four hours, was in complete contrast to Pant's pyrotechnics.
The Indian team's 'PPP' model -- the 'Pant-Pujara Partnership' worked and even more so because the senior player was dispatching those boundary balls during their 119 runs stand in just over 24 overs.
But then Virat Kohli, who looked a touch dejected in the end, wouldn't mind if Pant's shot had sailed into the stands. Pujara's pull had bounced off Ollie Pope stationed at forward short leg off Bess only to lob into the waiting hands of Rory Burns.
Bess easily impressed as he got the ball to dip and drift, something that worked for him while outfoxing Virat Kohli (11), who was caught at forward short leg.
Ajinkya Rahane (1) was brilliantly caught by Joe Root when a full toss dipped on him at the final moment. This was after Rohit Sharma (6) and Shubman Gill (29 off 28 balls) were dismissed by Jofra Archer (16-3-52-2).
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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.
