India had England on the mat as they reduced the hosts to 84/5 by the time Stumps were taken on day 2 of the one-off Test match in Edgbaston. Both the teams came back onto the field after the second rain interruption which was converted into an early Tea. But it was India who took the initiative and with sunlight in full flow, Mohammed Shami made the most of the late swing.
Meanwhile, after no wickets for the first 30 minutes, new skipper Jasprit Bumrah handed the ball to Mohammed Siraj who made the ball talk as he got rid of all-important Joe Root. The former England captain failed to gauge the late movement off the ball which kissed his bat and wicket-keeper Rishabh Pant completed an easy catch. Later night-watchman Jack Leach too looked clueless in front of Shami. He was beaten a couple of times and his catch was also dropped for 0 by none other than Virat Kohli.
Eventually, Shami had his man when Leach edged one right to the second slip, leaving England in staring down the barrel. Although they have the two best modern-day batters in Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow in the middle, they are still trailing India by 332 runs.
Earlier Ravindra Jadeja reaffirmed his status as India’s most valuable player across formats with a superbly crafted hundred before skipper Jasprit Bumrah took centre-stage, first smashing a world record and then blowing away England top-order on a rain-hit second day of the rescheduled fifth Test.
At tea, England were struggling at 60 for 3 as a nicely warmed-up Bumrah first castled opener Alex Lees (6) with a delivery that came in with the angle.
Then, in the post-lunch session, he got twice lucky as he removed Zak Crawley (9) and Ollie Pope (10) with the ‘seventh’ delivery of his third and sixth overs respectively.
Both were fuller deliveries which enticed the two right-handers to go for drives as Shubman Gill at third slip and Shreyas Iyer at second slip took regulation catches.
In-form batters Joe Root (19 batting) and Jonny Bairstow (6 batting) were at the crease when rain stopped play for the third time on the second day.
While he once again delivered with the ball but it was Bumrah (31 no, 16 balls) the batter whose fireworks will be remembered by the capacity Edgbaston crowd for the longest time as he smashed 29 runs off a Stuart Broad over.
In all, that over from Broad yielded 35 runs, including six extras.
Bumrah used the bat like a sword and even the edges seemed like “sweet spot” as he hit four boundaries and two sixes off Broad to give the hosts a dose of ‘Bazball’ (Brendon McCullum’s attacking philosophy), which had become a trending lingo in English cricket during the past few weeks.
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