Eng vs Ind, 4th Test: Ali, Bairstow back to pavilion as Ollie Pope put hosts in driver seat (Tea, Day 2)
Sep 03, 2021
London [UK], September 3 : England batsman Ollie Pope smashed an unbeaten 74 to bring the hosts right back into the fourth Test against India at the Kennington Oval on Friday.
With the opening session seeing the Indian bowlers slowly clawing back into the game, it was important for the hosts to rebuild the innings. While the Indian bowlers scalped a couple in the second session, the duo of Pope (74*) and Moeen Ali (35) brought the hosts back into the session.
At Tea, England's score read 227/7 -- leading by 36 runs with three wickets in the bag. Pope mixed caution with aggression as Mohammed Siraj and Ravindra Jadeja took the wicket of Bairstow and Moeen Ali respectively to keep the visitors in the game.
Siraj gave the much-needed breakthrough to the Indian team in the second session as he trapped the dangerous-looking Bairstow for LBW. He bowled full and straight to the English batsman as he completely missed the ball which was smashing into the leg. Jonny went to the pavilion after scoring a gritty 37.
Moeen Ali and Pope then started rebuilding the innings for the hosts. With both English batsmen going strong, Jadeja did the trick as he slowed the ball down to get a bit of drift as Moeen then went for the big shot down the ground but didn't time it to hand his wicket to Rohit at the cover.
India were buoyed by that late wicket of Moeen as things were just starting to slip but visitors will now feel, with a new ball only 10 overs away, that they can get rid of the last three wickets and get batting again in the third session.
Off the action, Daniel Jarvis -- also known as Jarvo 69 -- invaded the pitch again on the second day of the ongoing fourth Test. The incident took place during the 34th over of the England innings which was being bowled by Umesh Yadav and the match had to be halted for five minutes.
Brief Scores: India 191; England 227/7 (Pope 74*; Umesh 3/70)