England displayed an all-round performance on Day 2 to take an upper-hand in the fifth and final Test against India at The Oval. Resuming the innings from 198/7, Jos Buttler hit a patient 89 to help England cross the 300-run mark before the Indian bowlers finally wrapped up the innings for 332 shortly after lunch.
India opener Shikhar Dhawan once again failed to make a mark with the bat as Stuart Broad trapped him in front for just 3. Following the departure of Dhawan, KL Rahul and Cheteshwar Pujara steadied the Indian innings with a 64-run stand. However, Sam Curran provided England with a breakthrough by dismissing Rahul for 37.
India’s two best batsmen in the series, Virat Kohli and Cheteswar Pujara, held the Indian innings for a short while. But James Anderson dented the visitors with double blows. After cutting short Pujara's innings on 37, Anderson sent Ajinkya Rahane packing for a duck.
Ben Stokes gave England the biggest breakthrough as he dismissed Kohli just one short of his fourth fifty in this series. The rookie wicketkeeper, Rishabh Pant, also couldn’t stand up against the heat of English pacers. Rishabh (5) became the second victim of Stokes as England eventually reduced India to 174/6, still leading by 158 runs.
Twitter experts were not impressed to see the way Indian batting line-up got bamboozled by the English pacers despite playing four Tests in the country in the past one month.
Here are some of the tweets:
Well as England bowled, India’s batting dismal again. Can’t be the case that batsmen need all the luck and conditiins in ther favour to succeed. What about grit, application, ambition? Rahul, Dhawan , even young Pant v disappointing
— Cricketwallah (@cricketwallah) September 8, 2018
Deflating day if you are an India fan. But Buttler, Anderson and Broad were just outstanding.
— Harsha Bhogle (@bhogleharsha) September 8, 2018
V interesting day’s Crkt really w/lots o well nourished action-only snag’s Ind staring down the barrel w/emptiness galore..am afraid T-20 temperament’s struggling to desert the Indn dressing room & well..the results R glaringly infuriating-No 1 Test rank not quite resting well.!
— Bishan Bedi (@BishanBedi) September 8, 2018
Batting issues becoming even more glaring now. Can’t defend, can’t win overseas.????
— Sanjay Manjrekar (@sanjaymanjrekar) September 8, 2018
Same story continues in this Test Match as well. England tail or I would say lower middle order stretched too long n Indian Batting again over dependent on @imVkohli #INDvENG
— Ajay Ratra (@ajratra) September 8, 2018
At the end of Day-1, India was in with a real shout.
— Aakash Chopra (@cricketaakash) September 8, 2018
At the end of Day-2....India need a miracle to change the score line from reading 1-4 #EngvInd