🏏England tour of India 2024: 1st Test: 25 - 29 Jan 2024 - Day 4🏏 - Page 33

109.5

Tom Hartley to Axar, SIX, 86.3kph, airy and full again, Axar gets down on one leg to nail the slogsweep. Cracking sound and he's dispatched it over deep midwicket

"Sir Jadeja and Axar could bowl 75 overs by tea!" This is not universally considered a good thing, Ajay

109.6

Tom Hartley to Axar, FOUR, 83.8kph, same length, the line is wider and Axar gets low again to slogsweep it over midwicket

END OF OVER 110

15 runs

IND: 421/7

CRR: 3.82

AR Patel

35 (62)

RA Jadeja

81 (155)

TW Hartley

25-0-131-2

Rehan Ahmed

23-3-105-1

Day 2: Stumps - India lead by 175 runs

IND 421−7

(110)

"Just noticed from his Cricinfo page that the last time Jack Leach played a game of cricket, in any format, was the Ireland Test in the the first week of June!" Yes, Bob. He had a back stress fracture. So he's probably entitled to be a wee bit rusty

Stumps, day two: India's day! Eight of their nine batters got starts, three of them got to 80s, with one of them still unbeaten and there were five half-century partnerships. Despite picking three frontline spinners, it was Root who was their best spinner today. Removed Jaiswal in the very first over, almost had KL Rahul out for a duck, trapped Bharat lbw and managed to inflict some false shots from the Indian batters. The two inexperienced spinners weren't consistent enough and Leach didn't bowl a long spell today. Most of the Indian batsmen perished while trying to play the big shot but they are in a commanding position in this Test match. The two southpaws from Gujarat are hungry for more runs as their team's lead is approaching 200. Have India already batted England out of this contest? How will Bazball fare in the second innings? Tune in tomorrow to find out. Until then, goodbye...

Here are the thoughts of KL Rahul speaking to the hosts broadcaster: "The hundred in SA gave me confidence. Batting is coming out well, wanted to go out and asses what shots I could play. [Conditions?] Very different from SA. We've grown up playing on wickets like this. It's a bit slow and started to get slower and lower. Had to know what shots to play and wait for the opportunities. Enjoying batting in the middle order. You get a bit more time in the dressing room to see what the bowlers are like, what their plans are. [Target for first inns?] Not really, we just wanted to bat as long as we can and put as many runs on the board. We said if we can bat the opposition out of the game, we should."

Welcome to Day 3 of the 1st test between England and India.

Vikram Rathour | Indian batting coach: Extremely rewarding, extremely challenging, really interesting, I have loved my time here, it's been great working with the team, with a great bunch of cricketers. Lot to look forward to still. Some great results, have been part of some great series, great wins. Since WTC has come into picture, we've been made to play on much more challenging wickets as a batting unit, a great challenge when you play on these kinds of wickets. There 's a lot to learn as players and coaches. You need to help them, understand what the conditions are bringing and what kind of gameplans will work. (Gameplan today) Score as many as we can, nothing else, we still have a lot of time in the Test match. We'll look to keep batting as much as we can. Hoping that Jadeja goes on and scores a hundred, a well deserved hundred. Cricket has changed, absolutely no doubt about that. The wickets have changed, the bats have changed, everything about cricket has changed, cricket is being played in a more aggressive manner nowadays and I love it. I really enjoy this kind of cricket. The idea is to play good cricket. If the conditions and situations allow you to go and play your shots, they should go and do that. That's what we are doing well in this game.

Zak Crawley: It's been interesting and I'm enjoying it. That's what you like as a cricketer, playing in different parts of the world. Australia was different, we had a good camp in Abu Dhabi before coming over here. Pretty similar conditions to that of Pakistan, just that it's a little better for spin here, Pakistan's wickets were better for batters, but we knew spin would be a big part here. We weren't surprised, the boys did bowl well, but they batted better. It did look like the pitch is slowing down and hopefully it'll stay the same today as well, which will make our job a bit easier. We'll play in a similar way, always take the positive option. We'll not think too much (about the deficit), hopefully the runs will come.