Motera Pink-Ball Test All Over In Less Than 2 Days As India Crush England By 10 Wickets To Go 2-1 Up!
17 wickets fell today, the second day that is 25th
February 2021, compared to 13 on the first day yesterday. Replying to England’s
112 India started the day at 99/3 and just after levelling the score there was
a collapse, losing 7 wickets for a final total of 145, yielding a tiny lead of
33 runs. Captain Joe Root made a spectacular display of spin bowling by taking
a fiver for only 8 runs, and Jack Leach settled for 4 wickets. There was much expectation from the famed
Indian batting depth to build a match-winning lead on the visitors’ paltry
total, but failed in heaps. Therefore, at that point the match was evenly
poised.
England’s second innings turned out to be a bigger
disaster with Axar striking with his very first ball and then devouring
Bairstow in the same over. England could never recover from those vital blows
finally folding up for one of their lowest totals of 81, giving India just 49
runs to get for a win. Openers Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill did that easily
enough within one hour of the third session thus ensuring a thumping win by 10
wickets. England is now out of contention for the World Test Championship Final
and India only has to make sure of not losing the fourth and last Test match at
the same venue to secure its berth.
Now questions are about how the pitch at the Narendra
Modi Cricket Stadium is going to behave in the fourth and last test match
between the two countries that starts from the 4th of March 2021. The
pitch has been having uneven bounce from the very first day helping the ball
turn viciously and it has also been showing cracks or even breaking up at places.
Is it the kind of pitch that befits the supposedly the largest and the most
modern cricket stadium of the world or is it consciously tailormade for the Indian
spinners? Is it going to be more unplayable? How are the curators and groundsmen
going to make it ready for the fourth test? Cricket experts justify it by saying that such
a challenging pitch basically tests the application, techniques and the mindset
of the players; however, a five-day test match not going beyond two days
remains a concern. The first pink-test focused on grass-topped pitches which
was a paradigm shift to develop the country’s promising fast bowlers; but the
second pink-ball test seems to have put it back to square one. Only time would
provide the answers.
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