Rahul, Pujara fail as India totter at 88 for 4 at lunch
New Delhi (PTI): KL Rahul's bad patch continued while Cheteshwar Pujara had a forgettable first innings outing in his 100th Test as premier Australian spinner Nathan Lyon reduced India to 88 for four at lunch on day two of the second Test here on Saturday.
Only skipper Rohit Sharma (32) looked in good touch as a vintage Lyon (11-1-25-4) was in his element, troubling the top-order repeatedly.
The Kotla track had a bit more pace off the track compared to Jamtha and hence Lyon's deliveries at times hurried the batters. Also giving a bit more air created doubts in the minds of the batters.
Rahul (17), who survived two DRS appeals by Australia, was trapped leg-before as Lyon tossed one from round the wicket and got it to deviate enough and find his pads.
Rahul's saga of failures continued and now a question would be asked whether the Indian team management is being unfair by forcing Shubman Gill to cool his heels in the dugout.
Rohit seemed to carry from where he had left in the first Test and was also playing the sweep shot to good effect. However he played across the line to a straighter one from Lyon and was castled in the process.
Rarely has Pujara walked into bat amid such fanfare and 20,000 plus Kotla crowd chanting his name but his milestone match turned out to be some sort of an anti-climax as he failed to bother the scorers.
In case of Pujara, it was another flighted one and it turned back enough with the orthodox Rajkot man trying to play a half forward defensive stroke. The turn was enough for the umpire to raise his dreaded finger.
Coming back from injury, Shreyas Iyer (4) looked confident in his brief stay at the crease but a stroke of bad luck brought about his downfall.
He played one of his legs towards the leg-side and Peter Handscomb latched on to a reflex catch which wouldn't get stuck nine out of 10 times. Handscomb actually fumbled but the ball simply stuck between his legs to see Iyer's back.
At the break, Ravindra Jadeja (14 batting), one of India's best Test batters in recent years, was at the crease along with Virat Kohli (15 batting).
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Rupee falls 9 paise to all-time low of 90.58 against US dollar in early trade
Mumbai (PTI): Rupee depreciated 9 paise to an all-time low of 90.58 against US dollar in early trade on Monday, weighed down by uncertainty over an India-US trade deal and persistent foreign fund outflows.
Forex traders said rupee is trading with a negative bias as investors are in wait and watch mode and awaiting cues from the India-US trade deal front.
At the interbank foreign exchange market, the rupee opened at 90.53 against the US dollar, then fell further to an all-time intraday low of 90.58 against the greenback, registering a fall of 9 paise over its previous close.
On Friday, the rupee had slipped 17 paise to close at an all-time low of 90.49 against the American currency.
Meanwhile, the dollar index, which gauges the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, was trading 0.05 per cent lower at 98.35.
Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, was trading higher by 0.52 per cent at USD 61.44 per barrel in futures trade.
On the domestic equity market front, the 30-share benchmark index Sensex was trading 298.86 points lower at 84,968.80, while the Nifty was down 121.40 points at 25,925.55.
Foreign Institutional Investors sold equities worth Rs 1,114.22 crore on Friday, according to exchange data.
"FPIs continue to be in selling mode in equity and debt while RBI has been selling dollars to fund their long positions," said Anil Kumar Bhansali, Head of Treasury and Executive Director Finrex Treasury Advisors LLP.
