IND vs ENG: India reach 309/5 at tea on day 2 of opening Test
Ravindra Jadeja and KS Bharat were batting on 45 and 9 at the break
Hyderabad: KL Rahul missed out on a century as he fell for 86 but India took a healthy 63 run lead going into the tea at 309/5. India, resuming at the overnight score of 222/3, scored runs quickly but lost four wickets.
Though India lost overnight batters – Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill – in the session, they scored 103 runs in 27 overs. Jaiswal, resuming at his overnight score 76, hit Joe Root for a boundary on the second ball of the day but the England bowler had the upper hand dismissing the youngster two deliveries later. Jaiswal tried to continue in his aggressive fashion as he tried to dance down the track to loft the bowler straight down the ground but ended up giving a return catch to Root to be dismissed for 80 runs. He added 43 runs for the second wicket with Gill.
Rahul, with Shubman Gill, steadied the innings scoring occasional boundaries. He hit debutant Hartley for consecutive boundaries and looked in good rhythm. However, Gill threw his wicket away in search of quick runs. He whipped debutant Hartley to Ben Duckett who was placed at the mid-wicket just before that delivery.
But at the other end, Rahul looked determined to take on the bowlers. He hit Mark Wood for three boundaries in the 36th over – one of them coming off an inside edge. New batter Shreyas Iyer pulled a six over mid-wicket for his first boundary. Rahul then reached his half-century with a single off Root just before lunch.
India once again lost at the start of another session when Iyer was holed out at the deep mid-wicket boundary off Ahmed. The batter slog-swept the bowler straight into Hartley’s hands. But an undeterred Rahul continued in the same fashion. He lofted Ahmed for two sixes straight down the ground to put India in the lead in the 57th over.
However, Rahul missed a well-deserved century when he went for a big shot over deep mid-wicket but failed to middle it, giving it a simple catch to Ahmed. He added 65 runs for the with Jadeja. In the company of KS Bharat, Jadeja took India past 300-run mark before tea.
