Dharamsala Delight: There was a substantial collapse of the Indian total figures of nearly 70 courses for 3 wickets, but India remained on top of the statement thanks to centurion Rohit Sharma and half-century of Gill.
This day marked a unique match at one of the prettiest venues of this cricket chart, HPCA stadium. The morning and the afternoon trading cards were the respective rooms of India’s batting giants Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill. However, the last session witnessed a dramatic slump that helped England in the cricket fifth inning.
Rohit (103 off 162 balls) and Gill (110 off 150 balls) produced this great art of an innings, their bats are the tale of poetry that weave the motion of a willow. With this remarkable partnership (171 runs) off 244 balls the two made for India what has always been the most fearsome batting duo of the day. Only now they entered the playing field with the host at 135/1.
In addition to that, the débutante sample of Devdutt Padikkal (65 runs in 103 balls) demonstrated the feat of maturity above his age, and the ease with which Sarfaraz Khan made his 56 runs in 60 balls reminded England what difficulties young Indians are capable of putting them through.
Certainly, in the second inning after the tea, Sarfaraz’s mistake when he tried to cut a ball bowled by Shoaib Bashir was of the kind that he should have been able to avoid. Then came a batting collapse of phenomenal proportions.
From the stiff 5-down of 3 catches for 376/3 in the tea break, no one could believe that India’s worst slump occurred with the batsmen falling like 9 in a row for over a hundred runs as Bashir (4/170) and Tom Hartley (2/126) finally performed up to their potential to freehold the wickets on a charged The Indian duo turned out to be the blessed one as Indian batsmen were enriched from some disastrous stroke-making from the English team and the Indian team managed to score 473/8 at the end of the day.
A slack that was ultimately the only blot on an otherwise brilliant campaign is the late stumble that narrowed their 255-run advantage. In the beginning, Stokes, the skipper of the touring squad, was the only one who struck hard for the visitors, and that came only when he dismissed Rohit Sharm with his first ball, which he took after staying away from the game for almost nine months due to a knee injury.
There was a spike in cataclysm — a swinging pendulum. While Rohit and Gill prolonged India’s half-day domination by carrying on their good work after lunch, some clouds caused a decline in Indian relentlessness early in the evening. With this exciting contest reaching the third day, the next two days will leave fans breathless as the matter of the victory becomes settled on the final nail.
