England vs India 2nd Test, Highlights - Rahane's 103 Guides India to 290/9 on Day 1
Ajinkya Rahane slammed his second Test ton to steer India out of trouble and finish Day 1 of Lord's Test vs England on 290/9. Catch all the highlights here.
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After a mini-collapse in the second session thanks to James Anderson and Ben Stokes, the Indian innings was restored by a valiant effort from Ajinkya Rahane, who scored a gritty ton and made his way to the Lord's honours board and helped India finish on 290/9. Catch all the highlights of the match here: (Matchcentre)
23.02 (IST): Stumps! India finish on 290/9 courtesy Ajinkya Rahane's 103. A 90-run stand with Bhuvneshwar Kumar (36) resurrected Indian innings after James Anderson, Ben Stokes dismissed Kohli, Pujara, Dhoni and Jadeja in quick succession. The advantaged see-sawed its way back to India. The visitors won the first session on a greentop wicket with defiant batting but England bowlers improved their line and lengths to make severe in-roads into the India batting line-up. Rahane seemed like the only Indian batsman who was capable of weathering the English storm and he did that well in the final session to deny England an upper hand at the end of day. At close of play, Mohammed Shami (14) and Ishant Sharma (12) were at the crease. An interesting day two awaits us. Will be interesting to see how the Indian bowlers perform on the green wicket. For now, it's goodbye from me!
22.43 (IST): OUT! Rahane is gone! His fabulous innings of 103 comes to an end as he is gone caught and bowled. India 275/9.
22.40 (IST): Hundred for Rahane! He is now on the Lord's honours board. His ton comes off 151 balls. What a knock this has been!
22.17 (IST): Bhuvneshwar Kumar is gone! Stuart Broad cleans him up with a ball that did not rise as much as Bhuvneshwar anticipated it to. He departs for a well-made 36. It also ends the 90-run stand between him and rahane. India 235/8.
22.10 (IST): New ball taken! England have not wasted any time in opting for a brand new red cherry. James Anderson returns to the attack. India 223/7 in 80 overs.
21.55 (IST): FOUR! Bhuvneshwar guides a ball from Plunkett to the third man fence and brings up 200 for India. He and Rahane are doing a good job of pulling India out of the early wreckage.
21.36 (IST): Plunkett is now bowling from round the wicket and digging the ball short with three fielders around the bat on the leg side for Rahane. India 185/7
21.28 (IST): FIFTY for Rahane! He is leading India's fightback here. He gets to his third Test fifty with a boundary off Plunkett. India 179/7.
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21.14 (IST): Rahane is standing tall for India at the moment. He has 38 off 92 balls and has denied England another breakthrough in this final session. As far as India are concerned, they would want to end the day with both these batsmen in the middle. India 166/7.
20.41 (IST): Oh what a shot! Bhuvneshwar Kumar walks out and creams the first ball he faces through mid-wicket. India would love him to repeat his Trent Bridge heroics with the bat.
20.39 (IST): England's day is only getting better! Anderson traps Stuart Binny (7) in front of the stumps. India 145/7.
20.17 (IST): Second session:
- Exceptional comeback by England bowlers to put India on the backfoot.
- The pacers improved their lengths and even the best of batsmen struggled to negotiate.
- First Kohli was caught behind off a peach-of-a-delivery from Anderson and then Ben Stokes broke Pujara's resilience by breaching his defence.
- The ball was still seaming both ways and Dhoni was sent back early by Broad.
- Ravindra Jadeja walked out to a lot of boos at Lord's and returned to the hut very quickly after being trapped in front of the stumps by Moeen Ali.
- Through all this wreckage, Rahane slowly but steadily got his eye in. With Stuart Binny for company, he dragged India to 140/6 at the end of the second session.
20.12 (IST): Tea time! Second session comes to an end. India limp to 140/6 with Rahane (26 not out) and Stuart Binny (6 not out) in the middle. Anderson 2/19.
19.53 (IST): India lose their sixth! Jadeja couldn't last till Anderson was brought back on. He has been trapped leg before wicket by Moeen Ali for just 3. India slide to 128/6
19.43 (IST): Ravindra Jadeja walks out to a lot of boos at Lord's. Will Cook bring Anderson back into the attack?
19.42 (IST): OUT! Half of the Indian side is back in the hut! MS Dhoni is gone this time, out caught behind by Matt Prior off Stuart Broad. What a session this is turning out to be for the hosts. India 123/5.
19.21 (IST): England bowlers have considerably improved their lengths in the second session and the results are out there for all to see. Will be interesting to see how India approach the rest of the day. The wicket is still seaming around a bit, so an over-cautious approach or an all-out attack approach could spell doom. A lot will ride on how MS Dhoni takes the game from here. Rahane has done the initial hardwork and needs to truly dig in and give his skipper all the support from the other end. As for England, they're a wicket or two away from turning a good session into an exceptional one.
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19.17 (IST): Bowled him! Just when you began to think there was no way Pujara was going to give his wicket away, he gets an exceptional delivery from Ben Stokes that breaches his defence and rocks the middle-stump. India 113/4
19.05 (IST): India have a greater chance of winning a Test match on green pitches rather than the ones in Trent Bridge which was slow and low: Sourav Ganguly
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18.54 (IST): 100 up for India! Rahane takes India past the three-figure mark with a well-timed boundary down the ground. India 100/3
18.50 (IST): Pujara is grinding it out (19 off 96 balls), similar to the way the man he replaced at No.3 used to. Good signs for both him and the team.
18.28 (IST): OUT! Virat Kohli is gone! What a wicket for England. It's India's nemesis James Anderson again. He gets the ball to seam away from Kohli and an outside edge carries to Matt Prior, who does well to hold on to the ball. India 86/3
18.11 (IST): The second session is underway at Lord's. Can England push India on the backfoot? Or will India consolidate and retain the momentum?
17.34 (IST): First session:
- Cook made a good call at the toss and put India in on an ultra-green wicket.
- England bowlers started well and sent back Dhawan early.
- Failure to bowl full and straight resulted in England failing to seize the initiative.
- Pujara and Vijay dug in to steer India past the initial period when the ball was seaming both ways.
- After a lot of hardwork, Vijay was done in by extra bounce from Plunkett and departed for 24 but he had done enough to secure the advantage for his side in the first session.
- Virat Kohli walked out with a lot of confidence up his sleeves and continued poor bowling from England only helped his cause. Boundaries through covers and fine leg began to flow.
- England's poor tactics and failure to bowl full lengths has cost them dearly in the first session. India reached 74/2 and are sitting comfortably in the driver's seat.
17.33 (IST): End of first session! India 73/2 in 27 overs. Virat Kohli (20 not out) and Cheteshwar Pujara (11 not out) in the middle.
17.20 (IST): Virat Kohli is looking in fine nick today. He has helped poor balls to the fence with panache. A delivery down the leg was flicked away to the fine leg fence, and a couple of over-pitched balls were driven away handsomely through covers and straight down the ground. India 71/2 in 24.2 overs.
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17.05 (IST): GONE! Vijay's resistance has ended. He tries to flick a ball down the leg side but he was too early on the shot. Ballance pounces onto a thick outside edge to send Vijay back for 24. Plunkett the wicket-taker. India 48/2.
16.48 (IST): Another bowling change as Ben Stokes comes in to bowl. India 34/1 in 16 overs.
16.46 (IST): Pujara and Vijay are rebuilding India brick by brick. MS Dhoni will be the happier of the two captains at the moment as his batsmen have negotiated the early seam movement without losing many wickets. England badly need a breakthrough to try and force India on the backfoot.
16.35 (IST): Alastair Cook throws the ball to Liam Plunkett. India 25/1 in 13 overs.
16.20 (IST): Big appeal for LBW! Anderson is getting the ball to seam both ways! This time it pitches outside off and moves sharply in towards Vijay who is trapped in the crease. He is hit slightly above the knee roll due to which Dharmasena says no. Vijay survives, India 20/1
16.17 (IST): Outside edge for four! Anderson gets the ball to pitch on off and seam away and Vijay pushes at it. The ball runs away to the thirdman fence off the outside edge. India 20/1 in 10.3 overs
16.14 (IST): Broad getting the ball to seam away and beating Pujara's bat. That concludes the first 10 overs of the Lord's Test. India have survived, not without losing Dhawan. This pair needs to hold on for another 20 overs to have the upper hand ahead of the second session.
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16.03 (IST): Out of the eight overs bowled so far, six of them have been maidens but the Indian batsmen are not being tested enough on a wicket that could get some of the best batsmen dancing. England bowlers might also want to try out fuller lengths to induce more edges and leg before the wicket chances.
15.59 (IST): Rahul Dravid was called up to ring the bell at Lord's ahead of the Test.
Rahul Dravid rings the five-minute bell at the Lord's #Legend #EngvInd pic.twitter.com/9mIq1NTirn
- BCCI (@BCCI) July 17, 2014
15.58 (IST): With that wicket, James Anderson becomes the greatest wicket-taker on English soil, overtaking Fred Trueman.ÂÂ
15.49 (IST): So the ball is doing around enough for Alastair Cook to have a wide smile on his face. His strike bowler Anderson has made the first breakthrough and he will hope Broad can make further in-roads from the other end. Incredibly tough session for India. Down to Pujara and Vijay's ability to let most of the deliveries go until the wicket slows down.
15.44 (IST): OUT! Shikhar Dhawan is gone! He was tentative from the very first ball he faced and a peach-of-a-delivery from Anderson has brought an early end to his Lord's outing. Anderson's delivery pitched on leg but swung away a great deal, squaring up Dhawan and getting a thick outside edge from his bat. A low but simple catch to Gary Ballance at slips. India 11/1 in 2.5 overs.
15.40 (IST): Anderson angles a ball away from Dhawan after pitching it on middle and the latter lets the ball go. Dhawan's fate rests on how well he can let the balls outside the off-stump go and also keep a keen eye on the one that could pitch on middle and leg and straighten a bit.
15.39 (IST): Poor from Broad! After a good first delivery, he ends up straying down Dhawan's legside. India 11/0 in 2 overs.
15.36 (IST): Outside edge! Stuart Broad bowls to left-handed Shikhar Dhawan and straight away gets the ball to angle away. Dhawan is almost squared up and the ball flies off the outside edge between slips for a four. This could be a testing session for an out-of-sorts Dhawan. India 4/0 in 1.1 overs.
15.34 (IST): The pitch has a vibrant tinge of green indeed but the sun is out too. That could only mean that this wicket will be a batting paradise after 15-20 overs. It will bode well for the visitors if they can see out those overs, inch to a score of around 60-70 in the first session and then take control from then on. As for Cook, he needs two or three wickets at the earliest to put India on the backfoot. Interesting first session beckons.
15.30 (IST): James Anderson bowls the first over. Murali Vijay takes strike.
15.12 (IST): Right then! The captains have had their say on the wicket. The toss is done. It looks like a great day for cricket at Lord's with a fired-up James Anderson to bowl on a wicket that has a lot of grass on it.
15.09 (IST): MS Dhoni at the toss: It looks a good wicket but something for the fast bowlers.
15.09 (IST): Alastair Cook at the toss: Never seen Lord's pitch so green.
15.07 (IST): England: Alastair Cook, Sam Robson, Gary Ballance, Ian Bell, Joe Root, Moeen Ali, Matt Prior, Ben Stokes, Stuart Broad, Liam Plunkett, James Anderson
15.06 (IST): India: Shikhar Dhawan, Murali Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, MS Dhoni, Ravindra Jadeja, Stuart Binny, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami
15.06 (IST): England too have not made any change despite including spinner Simon Kerrigan to their 14-man squad.
15.05 (IST): Despite a lot of speculation and a green cover on the wicket, India have not made any changes to their side. They play the same XI that featured in the first Test at Trent Bridge.
15.04 (IST): England skipper Alastair Cook won the toss and opted to field against India.
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The 22 yards at the world's most hallowed cricket turf will become the focus of all attention once captains Alastair Cook and Mahendra Singh Dhoni step out to toss with their team list in hand. Cricket remembers men who scored runs and bagged wickets. The gentleman's game has no place for rowdies and cheats.
The series got off to a rather insipid start at Nottingham last week. Although there were several classy individual performances - Murali Vijay's maiden overseas century, Joe Root's match-saving ton and of course, the world record 10th wicket stand by the English - the docile nature of the pitch took the sting out of the drawn Trent Bridge Test.
But at Lord's there should be enough spice. Anderson, of course, will be the man to watch because he seemed to have upset the Indian camp by abusing and pushing the equally reactive Jadeja. On Wednesday, Sunil Gavaskar, back in the business of media, told NDTV, "Let the bat and ball do the talking."
The former Test batsman, upset with the Anderson-Jadeja incident, said the guilty should be punished and cricket's image should not be tarnished. If the players can reproduce the fire in them through a brilliant hundred or a fiery three-wicket spell on a seaming track or can even send in some chin music, there can't be a better advertisement for Test cricket. (England vs India Schedule)
Anderson, Man of the Match at Trent Bridge, is approaching a big milestone. The 32-year-old Lancs speedster is eyeing Fred Trueman's English record at home. No doubt, he is England's bowling spearhead. He can swing the ball, reverse it and can be a real threat.
Are the Indians scared of him? Cook feels so. "Jimmy is an outstanding bowler with a fantastic record. It's probably a tactic by India, if we are being honest," Cook said on Wednesday. "For Jimmy, all the lads are rallying round him. He is a stalwart of our side. He is an outstanding bowler with a fantastic record. "We can't let this be a distraction ... but at certain times in this (Lord's) Test match Jimmy will let his bowling do the talking," said Cook.
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The England captain will also look to strike some form. He has been pilloried for a string of batting failures and his captaincy has been questioned. The Trent Bridge draw was England's ninth Test without a win, and another draw or a defeat against India this week would equal a winless streak stretching back to 1992/93.
India were clearly surprised to find a low and slow wicket at Nottingham. It is unlikely the visitors will enjoy sub-continent like conditions at Lord's. It's only fair that the home team enjoys home conditions. That will mean facing seaming conditions on a greentop. Dhoni doesn't mind these conditions for his rookie side.
India could be playing five specialist bowlers and off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin is certainly going to be an option. The Tamil Nadu off-spinner didn't play at Trent Bridge. A man who leads by gut-feeling, Dhoni may just be tempted to see the fire in Jadeja again. With the ball and bat, of course!