With resplendent Axar and Ashwin, India continues to dominate the visitors!

In what has become a splendid opening of the fourth and final test match for India against England, Virat Kohli-led fleet has been continuing to dominate the English players with the strong bowling display. England is currently on the Indian tour where the visitors have camped for four Tests, five T20s, and three ODIs. 

Both the teams have begun the battle from the Test series and while India leads the series with 2-1 in three matches, the fourth and final Test match had begun on Thursday at Narendra Modi stadium in Ahmedabad, which is the world's largest cricket stadium on the scale of occupancy.

England had won the toss and elected to bat first. As the visitors had faced a huge blow from the host in the third match, England had opened the innings to manage the Indian bowling line-up and to put a big score on the board. However, the Indian spinners had restricted the visitors from scoring big. England had a flawed opening with Dom Sibley getting dismissed for two runs when the team had scored only ten runs. Following Sibley, the visitors had lost another opener as Zak Crawley had got dismissed for nine runs. 

Jonny Bairstow had come to the crease only to witness the dismissal of his partner on crease Joe Root. Bairstow tried to manage the Indian spinners, but he missed out to manage the fast bowling and he was dismissed by pacer Mohammed Siraj for 28 runs off 67 balls.  Ben Stokes, Ollie Pope, and Dan Lawrence had put a good show to revive back but the visitors found it difficult to withstand the Indian spinners. 

Ben Stokes was dismissed by Washington Sundar for 55 runs off 121 balls including six fours and two sixes. Lawrence was sent back to the pavilion by Axar Patel for 46 runs off 74 balls including eight fours while Pope was dismissed by Ashwin for 29 runs off 87 balls including two fours. The rest of the batsmen had failed to build the momentum and eventually, England had put 205 runs by losing all the wickets. 

It must be noted that England had lost all the wickets on the first day of the final test match of the current tour which also has become a must-win match for the visitors to level the series. On the Indian side, Axar Patel had taken four wickets while Ashwin has grabbed three wickets. Mohammed Siraj has taken two wickets and Sundar got one wicket. 

Indian spinners Axar Patel and Ashwin have been resplendent throughout the series. In the third match that was held in the same venue, Axar has got eleven wickets while Ashwin has reached a remarkable feat and become the second-fastest Test bowler in the Test cricket history to get 400 wickets after legendary spinner Muthiah Muralidharan.

After bowling out England for 205 runs, India has begun its batting on the first day. The host had also witnessed a shocking opening as Shubman Gill had got dismissed for a duck. The first day was called off when India had scored 24 runs and lost one wicket. Rohit Sharma and Cheteshwar Pujara are on the crease and India is trailing by 181 runs. According to Reuters, India, which leads the series 2-1, must draw the series to reserve the place in the final of the inaugural World Test Championship against New Zealand in June. 

 

Comments