The Axar-Ashwin show: India hammer England in day-night Test inside two days
Ahmedabad, Feb 25: India registered only their second Test victory inside two days, overhauling a meagre target of 49 against England in the day-night third game to take an unassailable 2-1 lead in the four-match series here on Thursday.
The last time India won inside two days in a Test was in 2018, beating Afghanistan in Bengaluru. England's previous Test loss inside two days came way back in 1921 against Australia.
There was no end to England's batting woes against the spin duo of Axar Patel and Ravichandran Ashwin as the side folded for 81 in its second innings. This was the team's lowest Test total against India.
Openers Rohit Sharma (25) and Shubman Gill (15) then completed the formalities in 7.4 overs, barely half an hour into the final session of the day.
Earlier, Patel picked five wickets in the English second essay, adding to his outstanding haul of six in the first innings. His became the best bowling performance in a pink-ball match.
Ashwin, on the other hand, added four more to his first-day spoils of three scalps to cross the 400-wicket mark in the longest format.
He became the fourth Indian after Anil Kumble (619), Kapil Dev (434) and Harbhajan Singh (417) to achieve the feat.
England's scorecard bore a dismal look with all-rounder Ben Stokes 25 and Ollie Pope's 12 being the best contributions.
In the afternoon session, India's first innings folded for 145 with opener Rohit Sharma top-scoring with a 66-run knock. England captain Joe Root returned career-best figures of 5/8 for his team.
Brief Scores:
England: 112 and 81 in 30.4 overs (Ben Stokes 25, Axar Patel 5/32, Ravichandra Ashwin 4/48).
India: 145 all out and 49 for no loss in 7.4 overs (Rohit Sharma 25 not out, Shubman Gill 15 not out).
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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.
