India vs England | Pujara and Vijay's tons help India towards a huge total
Cheteshwar Pujara and Murali Vijay's partnership of 209 for the 2nd wicket put India back on top in the 1st Test against England as they ended day 3 at 319/4. Despite England pacer Chris Voakes troubling Pujara with his bouncers, the local boy stood tall to help India cut down the lead to 218 runs.
Brief Scores: India 319 for 4 (Pujara 124, Vijay 126; Ben Stokes 1-39) trail England 537(Ben Stokes 128, Joe Root 124; Ravindra Jadeja 3-86) by 218 runs
After starting the day from their overnight score of 63/0 in reply to England's first innings total of 537, India faced a speed bump early on as Stuart Broad trapped opener Gautam Gambhir with his first ball of the morning.
India recover after Gambhir wicket
With the surface at Rajkot promising to be a good game for the batsmen, Gautam Gambhir was slightly unlucky to be dismissed early in the day. The left-hander tried to glance Stuart Broad's delivery down the leg side but his bat hit his pad and was caught plumb in front of the stumps. But England's happiness did not last long after Cheteshwar Pujara joined Murali Vijay at the crease, and the Saurashtra batsman got settled in quickly and started dispatching the bad balls to the boundary.
Pujara's struggles against the short deliveries are well documented and Chris Woakes made life hard for the batsman by hitting the batsman no less than three times on the helmet. After weathering the initial storm, both batsman starting scoring freely and brought up their half-centuries in consecutive overs. The Indian contingent had managed to reach a score of 162/1 when the umpire decided to break for lunch.
Pujara and Vijay power on
After seeing through the difficult period against Voakes, Pujara started playing more freely post lunch break. Vijay, on the other hand, played a gritty knock displaying a lot of patience and discipline to leave the good balls and smash the odd bad balls to chip away at the big total. But the strongest point of their partnership was the beautiful footwork they displayed. Both the batsmen were cautious while picking up doubles but were generous while scoring boundaries reaching their half-centuries, one after the other, taking India past 150.
India crossed the 200-run mark when the introduction of spinner Adil Rashid troubled the hosts. The leggie bowled some tight line often pitching short on the off stump which drew a close call for lbw against Pujara as he was nearing his century. The Saurashtra batsman displayed immense concentration just before the tea break playing 8 balls on 99. Vijay and Pujara's partnership ballooned to 160 runs as they walked for the tea break.
Pujara and Vijay fall after valiant efforts
Chris Woakes's third delivery after the tea break brought up Pujara's 9th Test century, as the Indian No.3 took a single with a dab down the point region. Murali Vijay too completed his hundred in the next few minutes scoring a six and two boundaries off Moeen Ali and Stuart Broad. Eventually, Pujara fell at 124 when he nicked Ben Stokes' short ball towards the wide slip.
Alongside skipper Virat Kohli, Vijay looked to steer India safely past 330 runs when the introduction of Moeen Ali broke the Tamil Nadu batsman's focus. A short ball from Ali took an inside edge off Vijay's bat and landed safely for Haseeb Hameed at short leg. England struck immediately with Rashid removing night-watchman Amit Mishra for a duck in a similar fashion to Vijay's wicket. The umpires called it stumps with India trailing by 218 runs in the first innings.
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