Skipper Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill’s splendid centuries gave India complete control of the fifth Test against England, despite a late batting collapse that saw the hosts end day two at 473 for eight on Friday.
India lost as many as five wickets for 97 runs in the final session after Rohit (103 off 162 balls) and Gill (110 off 150 balls) shared a stroke-filled 171-run partnership off 244 balls for the second wicket.
Debutant Devdutt Padikkal (65 off 103) showed a lot of class in his first innings, while Sarfaraz Khan (56 off 60) was guilty of throwing away his wicket on the first ball after tea. The home team, which began the day at 135 for one, led England by 255 runs at stumps.
Off-spinner Shoaib Bashir (4/170 in 44 overs), who was taken to the cleaners by the Indian openers, bounced back strongly to take three wickets in the final session. Left-arm spinner Tom Hartley (2/126 in 39) was also impressive towards the end of the day, while Mark Wood (0/89 in 15) was the most expensive.
The pitch remains conducive to batting, and at 376 for three at tea, India looked set to bat England out of the game before the combination of good bowling and reckless batting kept the visitors alive in the match.
India scored at close to 4.5 runs per over until slowing down significantly in the final session. Kuldeep Yadav spun the ball much more than his fellow Indian spinners on day one, but after a tough time in the first two sessions on day two, Bashir and Co. extracted a lot from the surface.
Sarfaraz tried to cut a harmless ball from Bashir and ended up giving an easy catch to Joe Root at first slip. Padikkal got a beauty from the England off-spinner that spun away from the middle stump to hit the top of the off-stump.