Pujara, Kohli take India's lead to 362 at lunch on day 3
Nottingham, Aug 20: Cheteshwar Pujara (56) and skipper Virat Kohli (54) helped India take their overall lead to 362 at lunch as India were 194/2 in their second innings on the third day of the third Test against England here on Monday.
Pujara and Kohli were at the crease when umpires called for the break. The duo stitched a crucial 83-run partnership for the third wicket to put India in the driver's seat.
Resuming from the individual overnight scores of 33 and 8, Pujara and Kohli played out the opening hour cautiously. Pujara was dropped at the slips when he was 40 but after that the Indian batters played freely. In the process, Pujara and Kohli completed their half centuries in style.
England bowlers, on the other hand, struggled to find the right length and were punished regularly. Towards the end of the session, skipper Joe Root also came to bowl as their front-line bowlers were struggling.
Brief scores: India: 329 all out and 194/2 (Cheteshwar Pujara 56 not out, Virat Kohli 54 not out; Adil Rashid 1/38) at lunch against England: 161 all out.
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Confident we are going to win Kerala: Shashi Tharoor
New Delhi (PTI): Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Thursday expressed confidence in the victory of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala, saying the Congress-led alliance will win more than 75 seats out of the total 140 in the state.
Tharoor, who hails from Kerala, said he was not surprised to see the results of the exit polls, most of which predicted a victory for the UDF that has been out of power for 10 years in the state.
"We have been on the ground. I have campaigned in 59 constituencies across 12 districts out of 14. I was very confident we are going to win.
"Everything that I have picked up from not just my party colleagues and workers but also from other observers, media and others have always convinced me that we were going to score a comfortable win of above 75 seats. And all the (exit) polls have confirmed the same thing," he told reporters here.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP said he was not surprised to see the results of the exit polls but in general he was not a big fan of exit polls in India.
"Because ours is not purely a homogenous society. We have to take into account gender issue, caste issue, class issue, regional disparities. You never get a convincingly large enough sample to give an accurate poll and now there is the additional complication that we have heard about in West Bengal this year that many people are unwilling to answer the questions of the pollsters," he said.
The Congress leader said normally, it used to be below 10 per cent that people said that they would not answer.
"Even if you are a reputable exit pollster, in Bengal, one polling company has said 60 per cent of people refused to answer. So, what is the worth of a poll where 60 per cent of your respondents have not answered," he said.
Several exit polls on Wednesday predicted a comeback by the Congress-led UDF in Kerala after 10 years, dethroning the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF).
Polling for the 140-member Kerala assembly was held on April 9. Results of assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Puducherry, besides Kerala, will be announced on May 4.
