Hyderabad
\nAfter Ollie Pope\u2019s 196 helped set India a target of 231, England spinners made life hard for the home side in an engrossing middle session on Day 4 in Hyderabad. Jack Leach bowled with a strapped left leg and Tom Hartley had a spring to his step after a lacklustre start to life in Test cricket in the first innings. The tall left-arm spinner picked each of the three wickets to fall as India got to 95\/3 at Tea.
\nIt was Pope and Hartley\u2019s combination with the bat that slowly but surely dragged the game away from India\u2019s grasp in the morning session. They combined once again to rattle India early as a bowler-short leg\/silly point fielder combination with the wickets of Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill.
\nJaiswal and Rohit Sharma made a cautious start to India\u2019s chase while the visiting spinners got some variable bounce and appreciable turn off the surface. In the 12th over off Hartley, Jaiswal looked to change that narrative and take control of the proceedings as he went after the left-arm spinner.
\nHe cut a short delivery past point, after which Hartley moved his lengths up the pitch. Three balls later, in anticipation of another full ball, Jaiswal gave the spinner the charge, only for him to pull his length back. Jaiswal went through with his big shot but didn\u2019t middle it and Pope pouched a sharp take at short leg. Two balls later, Gill fell while prodding forward at a flighted delivery which went to Pope at silly point.
\nRohit refused to let the England spinners dictate terms, and pulled a leaf out of Pope\u2019s book by sweeping and reverse-sweeping at will. He picked up two successive fours with a reverse sweep off Leach in a brisk start to his knock. He however, was trapped leg before by a Hartley delivery that didn\u2019t turn as much as he anticipated. The ball beat the inside edge of his bat and hit him on the front foot, prompting the umpire to side with the bowling side. Rohit pondered for a bit and risked a review, taking it back with him in the process.
\nIndia sent in the left-handed Axar Patel at No.5 to negate the spinners turning the ball away from the right-handers and it worked. Patel took on leggie Rehan Ahmed, driving two full deliveries, forcing him to change his lengths and then pulled a short one for another four in a 13-run over. Rahul meanwhile, brought out the sweep shot against Hartley. The duo took India to within 136 runs of the target at the end of the second session.
\nBrief scores: England 246 & 420 (Ollie Pope 196, Ben Duckett 47; Jasprit Bumrah 4-41, Ravichandran Ashwin 3-126) lead India 436 & 95\/3 (Tom Hartley 3-31) by 136 runs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hyderabad After Ollie Pope\u2019s 196 helped set India a target of 231, England spinners made life hard for the home side in an engrossing middle session on Day 4 in Hyderabad. Jack Leach bowled with a strapped left leg and Tom Hartley had a spring to his step after a lacklustre start to life in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383799,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-383791","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"yoast_head":"\n