Kolkata: Four Tests down the line, England finally seemed English at the most unlikely of venues. The pitch had a generous smattering of grass, the skies over the Oval were intimidatingly grey, the outfield was damp and heavy because of passing showers, and the ball was nipping and occasionally climbing as a result.
Perfect conditions to bowl but such has been Shubman Gill’s rotten luck with the toss, he lost the fifth time in a row and India were put into bat. Against an England side without Ben Stokes and Jofra Archer, the visitors were made to toil on a rain-truncated day before Karun Nair put his foot down with a gritty fifty and help India end the first day on 204/6.
Thirty of those runs came by way of extras on a day England’s fast bowlers were wayward and also found it difficult to control the wet Dukes ball. But when they had a grip of the ball and the conditions, India suffered. The 45-run partnership between Shubman Gill and Sai Sudharsan offered a brief respite before the India captain needlessly ran himself out.
And just when things were looking to improve in the third session, Dhruv Jurel fished at a Gus Atkinson delivery to be snapped up in the slip cordon. Nair however played a grinding knock, showing exemplary resilience in the face of challenging conditions with Washington Sundar for company. His glances were impactful, as were the full throttle drives as Nair slowly shifted gears to score his first fifty in this series. In fact, it was his first fifty since the 303* against England at Chennai in 2016.
Of the entire day, Nair’s innings was the only positive for India. Sudharsan made 38 but it wasn’t exactly well-compiled. Even the four that got India’s innings to hundred was scratchy — Sudharsan edging Jamie Overton and watching the ball pierce the gap between third slip and gully. His luck ran out eventually when Josh Tongue — who was spraying the ball all day — squared him up with a delivery that angled in to pitch short of length and straightened enough to take the outside edge. Four overs later, India were five down when Tongue again got the ball to angle in from round the wicket and nip away to get the edge off Ravindra Jadeja’s bat.
Both were great, almost unplayable, deliveries. But the three wickets to fall before those were because of bad decisions, concentration lapses and poor judgement. Having been handed the raw end of the deal in terms of unfavourable conditions, the onus was on India’s openers to weather out the opening hour. They managed 15 overs. His boisterous start to the series feels like a lifetime ago with Yashasvi Jaiswal struggling inelegantly. The first five balls from Chris Woakes were dealt with adequately, but the moment the good length was hit, Jaiswal was drawn into a defensive prod.
The first leave against Gus Atkinson was tight and so the pacer went straighter. This time, Jaiswal’s feet didn’t move and neither did the bat come down quickly enough as the ball struck him just below the knee-roll. Two sounds made the umpire give Jaiswal the benefit of doubt but Ollie Pope reviewed to find a big gap between bat and pad, HawkEye returning all-three reds on the call. This is the fourth time Jaiswal has been dismissed on 10 or less, and for the seventh time in nine innings he has been dismissed by a pacer bowling around the wicket.
Dismissing KL Rahul is perceptively a more onerous task. Judging the ball better than Jaiswal, Rahul was once again intent on playing the ball as late as possible. Tucking away Woakes for an early boundary, blocking the ball with the full face of the bat, leaving the deliveries that were in the more adventurous channels, Rahul looked set to play the patient game. But England slowly started tightening the lines around him. Tongue made him play and miss, before making the ball nip in so much that Rahul could have been bowled after shouldering arms. These were the first signs of breach in Rahul’s off-side game, and pretty soon Woakes cramped him for room with a back of length delivery that he tried to cut. The bounce was high, the ball got too close, and Rahul as a result chopped it on to his stumps.
In came Gill, straightaway showing glimpses of the form that set him up to eclipse Sunil Gavaskar’s record of most runs in a series by an Indian skipper. He punched Overton through covers for two fours before pulling him through square-leg for another boundary. Another flourishing cover drive made Gill look imperious in challenging conditions, till his impatience became his undoing just after he surpassed the Gavaskar record. Pushing Atkinson towards short cover, Gill set off for a single that was never on. Sudharsan rightly sent him back but by then Atkinson had swooped on the ball to steal enough time to knock down the stumps.
