IND vs ENG | Steely Gill and Jurel outlast scrappy England to clinch series victory in humdinger

SportsCafe Desk

BySportsCafe Desk, SportsCafe Editor

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England exhibited valiant fighting spirit on Day 4 in Ranchi but India's quality ultimately shone through to seal the series with a game to go. Rohit Sharma's 55 set the stage and despite Shoaib Bashir's three scalps injecting doubt, Dhruv Jurel and Shubman Gill got the job done with a 72-run stand.

‌‌Brief score: IND 192/5 (Rohit 55, Gill 52*; Bashir 26-4-79-3) & 307 defeat ENG 353 & 145 by five wickets

After his rookie spinners gave away 40 runs at a quick rate for no rewards on the previous evening, Ben Stokes turned to James Anderson to provide some control at the start of Day 4 and the veteran obliged with a maiden first-up. However, realizing that the pitch was not playing any tricks, Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal took little time to take off again and added 44 more runs at nearly five an over, inching India to within 108 runs of victory. 

Stokes ultimately brought Root on for his second spell out of desperation and the veteran rewarded with Jaiswal's scalp on just the third ball after the opener got a thick outside edge during an attempted heave over covers that was well taken by a diving James Anderson at short third-man. Nervy times ensured with the pitch suddenly beginning to rag and offer uneven bounce. Rohit attempted to eventually break the shackles after bringing up just a second firs-class half-century in the fourth innings by dancing down the track against Tom Hartley only to be beaten comprehensively on the outside edge and Ben Foakes did the rest. Rajat Patidar followed suit an over later as his lean run culminated in a blinder by Ollie Pope at short-leg, with India suddenly reeling at 100/3 with momentum firmly in the visitors' favour. Shubman Gill and Ravindra Jadeja exercised caution to avoid any further damage and take the hosts safely through to Lunch with 72 runs still to get.

As it turned out, England had just been setting the stage for chaos to break loose as Shoaib Bashir scalped Jadeja with a low full toss with his first ball after the break and then dispatched Sarfaraz Khan for a golden duck off a bat-pad to put the visitors in the driver's seat. However, Gill and Dhruv Jurel showed nerves of steel to keep the threatening spinners at bay thereon and kept milking singles. Jurel struck the first boundary in 185 balls in the 47th over to bring the required runs under 50 and once it had touched the 20-run mark, Gill hoisted Bashir for two handsome sixes to essentially seal the deal and bring up his fifty. The wicket-keeper batter eventually hit the winning runs in the 61st over to stay unbeaten on 39 and hand India an unassailable 3-1 series lead.

True

17 and counting

Just Bazzball things

Big win!

Absolutely!

1st ever series defeat

Jurel the hero!

Jurel & Gill won it for India!

Excellent

Clinched!

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