Scorecard: India v England third Test
England first innings: 112 all out (Crawley 53; Patel 6-38, Ashwin 3-26)
India first innings: 145 all out (Sharma 66; Root 5-8, Leach 4-54)
England second innings: 81 all out (Patel 5-32, Ashwin 4-48)
India second innings: 49-0 (Sharma 25*)
India won by 10 wickets
Day Two report
England were on the wrong end of cricketing carnage in Ahmedabad as they succumbed to the embarrassment of a two-day defeat by India.
When Rohit Sharma clubbed the winning six to seal a 10-wicket home win under lights it ended a dizzying day of activity that added up to a hopelessly uneven contest between bat and pink ball but also a deserved victor.
Two-day finishes are rare for a reason – there have been only six others in the last 75 years – and it took a mixture of fine bowling, deeply flawed batting and a pitch unsuitable for long-form matches to add to that list.
To dismiss any of the three factors would be myopic and unhelpful, but while 17 wickets in the first two sessions made for high-octane entertainment it was a mostly unedifying spectacle.
England have been frustrated by the surfaces and some of the umpiring but could hardly complain about the result having lost all 20 wickets for 193 and lasted less than 80 overs across two innings.
After one session things had looked very different for the tourists, when a hot streak of seven for 31 saw them dismiss India for 145 – just 33 in front.
It had taken a staggering haul of five for eight from Joe Root’s part-time spin to create that unexpected note of optimism, but the same conditions which had turned Root’s occasional off-breaks into unplayable hand grenades soon left England batsmen on the canvas.
Axar Patel took five for 32 to finish with a match haul of 11, with Ravichandran Ashwin bagging four, including his magical 400th.
Left needing just 49 to take a 2-1 series lead, Rohit charged for the line and ended things with a booming six off Root, whose side cannot now qualify for the World Test Championship final.
India began the day on 99 for three in reply to their opponent’s 112, moving into the lead after 15 undramatic minutes at the start of the day. Things would never return to that kind of calmness, with Jack Leach setting in motion a staggering phase of trial by spin.
Any highlights package of dismissals would show an abundance of players on either side misreading, misjudging or simply missing deliveries that went straight on but that would unfairly discount the huge number either side that ragged sharply to sow the seeds of doubt.
Ajinkya Rahane was first to fall, pinned in front by Leach, before the left-armer had the overnight half-centurion Rohit lbw on the sweep for 66.
After an initial blast of James Anderson, Root bowed to the inevitable conclusion: that his side should have gone in with another specialist spinner and he would be needed to fill the gap.
It is hard to imagine the overlooked Dom Bess or the departed Moeen Ali could have done better than the skipper, though, as he snapped up three wickets without conceding a run.
His first ball was good enough to take care of the dangerous Rishabh Pant, tossed up into the left-hander’s rough and snaring the outside edge, and his next was one to treasure. Drifting in from round the wicket to Washington Sundar, he got some serious bite off the pitch, beat the bat and pinged the top of off.
Patel took a different route to the same destination, swinging heartily at his second ball from Root but picking out the man at short cover. Root won the race with Leach to complete a first career five-for, with Ashwin and Jasprit Bumrah falling into his trap.
At the change over England must have felt a mixture of joy at their comeback and trepidation at what awaited them. The joy would soon be gone.
Patel was relentless as he picked vast holes in the visiting side, pounding away mercilessly and cashing in on a mass inability to distinguish between big turners and skiddy arm balls.
He started in stirring style by cleaning up the source of almost half of England’s first-innings runs – Zak Crawley – with the first ball of the innings.
Patel thought he had a hat-trick, dating back to his last ball on day one, when he won an lbw decision against the sweeping Jonny Bairstow but when that was overturned he simply bowled the Yorkshireman outright at his next attempt.
England were still in arrears when Dom Sibley followed but Root and Ben Stokes shared a precarious stand of 31 to ensure there would be some sort of chase.
The pair joined the long list of lbw victims, Ashwin getting Stokes (25) for the 11th time in Tests and Patel finally worming his way through Root’s defence.
Once Ollie Pope lost his off stump to Ashwin, the end was nigh and none of the last five got to double figures as the spinners ran riot.
Sharma and and Shubman Gill knocked off the slender target as Leach and Root tried in vain to create some drama, leaving three days to commiserate behind closed doors.
Reaction
Joe Root: “Having won the toss and batted first, we felt like we got ourselves in a pretty good position there and we just didn’t capitalise on it. You get to that sort of position, you really want to make it count.
“Had we even got 250 on that wicket, that would have been a really good score. It’s something we’ll look back on and try to make sure that we’re better for it. We’ve just got to keep trying to learn and get better all the time.
“A week like this doesn’t define us as a team. We know what we’re capable of doing and we’ll come back and use the hurt of this week as motivation going into that last game.
“That plastic ball gathers pace off the wicket and the majority of the time you’re beaten for pace rather than actually from the line of things.
“But it’s high-quality bowling; you put the ball in good areas consistently and some are going to spin and some are going to go straight, it makes life very difficult for batters. Throughout the game, both sides did struggle with that, it wasn’t just us.”
“We’ve got some fine players in that dressing room, some fine batters that are more than capable of making some big scores and we’ve seen with ball in hand were going to be able to take wickets here."
Virat Kohli: “The result went our way but I don’t think the quality of batting was at all up to standard from both teams, to be very honest. There was a lack of application from both sides.
“It was a very good pitch to bat on, especially in the first innings. We just felt like the ball was coming on nicely, the odd ball turned but I would say below-par batting from both teams.
“Our bowlers were much more effective and that’s why we got the result. It was bizarre that of the 30 wickets, 21 were off straight balls.
“I feel that’s a lapse of concentration or indecision or too many things going on in your head as a batter where you’re playing for the turn but you’re getting beaten on the inside.
“I honestly feel batsmen need to trust their defence much more than they are presenting at the moment. This was a classic example of batsmen not applying themselves enough and that’s why it was such a quick game.”
Day One report
England endured a miserable first day in the day/night third Test against India, crumbling to 112 all out before watching the hosts reach 99 for three in response.
Joe Root won the toss at 2pm local time in Ahmedabad but that was as good as it got for the tourists, who were dismantled in less than 50 overs before failing to recreate the same havoc when they got the pink SG ball in hand.
With much of the pre-match talk concerning the uncertainty over the ‘twilight’ period and how hard it might be to bat when the natural light gave way, England lost their first eight wickets before the ring of LED lamps at the newly named Narendra Modi Stadium were even switched on.
They were all out soon after for their worst first-innings total in India – lowering a mark they set last week in Chennai by another 22 – with Zak Crawley’s elegant 53 the only note of resistance. With 10 stylish boundaries, his knock was an oasis of calm in an otherwise slipshod batting display.
From 74 for two they lost their next eight for just 38 more, as left-arm spinner Axar Patel ran through them to claim six for 38 and Ravichandran Ashwin chipped in with three of his own.
There was a frustrating repetitiveness to the English demise, with five of their top six failing to make contact with the ball while pushing forward in defence. Crawley, Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root and Ben Stokes all fell lbw and Ollie Pope was clean bowled.
While the previous Test in Chennai generated plenty of debate around the fitness of the pitch, which took lavish turn from the first moment, England seemed spooked here by the possibility of big spin rather than the reality.
India were just 13 short at the close, with England visibly frustrated and growing tetchy about third umpire Chettithody Shamshuddin’s willingness to wave away their appeals in haste.
England’s controversial rotation policy brought four more changes to their playing XI, Crawley and Jofra Archer back from injury while Bairstow and James Anderson returned from rests.
Dom Sibley was the one constant in England’s top three, with Rory Burns and Dan Lawrence dropped, but he fell for a duck as Ishant Sharma had a happy start to his 100th Test appearance. After finding a little inswing and some inconsistent bounce in his first over, his second saw Sibley prod tentatively to slip.
Crawley got England going in response, showing the full face of the bat to Jasprit Bumrah as the first scoring shot of the day pinged through mid-on for four. The sweet timing continued as he reeled off four more boundaries in quick succession, each one popping out of the middle.
Bairstow had no such joy, gone without score to the first ball of spin. Attempting to do no more than cover his stumps his judgement was a shade off as Patel thumped his front pad in front. Crawley was unperturbed, putting together a lovely highlights reel of strokes and bringing up a fine half-century by cutting the ball from deep in his crease.
Ashwin did not stay out of the contest for long, with one tight DRS decision going in Crawley’s favour before another sent Root back for 17 on umpire’s call. The descent was now under way, Crawley the latest lbw victim playing for turn as the ball skidded through.
From 81 for four at the interval, England went into full tail-spin, losing Pope and Stokes in the first two overs after the restart. Pope lost track of his off stump as Ashwin zipped one past his outside edge from round the wicket and a crease-bound Stokes was lbw to Patel in subdued fashion.
Patel rattled through the lower order as he worked away on a relentless line and length, Archer, Jack Leach and Stuart Broad all dismissed to a variety of equally unsuccessful shots. Ben Foakes lasted 58 balls for 12 before he was last man out on the cut.
England needed an instant impact and thought they had one when Broad took Shubman Gill’s outside edge. Replays suggested it may well have been grounded but England were vexed by both the decision and how quickly Shamshuddin reached it. Gill took 27 balls to get off the mark and was gone for 11, top-edging an ill-judged pull to give Archer the breakthrough.
With Anderson and Broad both struggling with the footholds, Leach stepped up to produce the breakthrough. Taking a leaf out of Patel’s book, he got Cheteshwar Pujara lbw for nought by sending one on with the arm.
Rohit Sharma passed 50 to keep his side in control but England did pick up Kohli when he dragged Leach into his stumps while cramped for room. By then England had already seen Pope shell a simple catch at gully before a very tight stumping appeal against Rohit was sent packing by Shamshuddin in the space of a few seconds, leaving Root to remonstrate with the on-field umpires.