Twitter Reactions: Adil Rashid, Liam Dawson puts England in a commanding position

It was yet another eventful day of Test cricket as England finished Day 2 of the 5th and Final Test at Mumbai with their noses slightly ahead of India. Beginning Day 2 at 284/4, England lost Ben Stokes early to Ravichandran Ashwin as the ace offie bowled a loopie off break which turned just enough to take the outside edge of Stokes. Parthiv Patel who was behind the stumps did no mistake in pouching the ball.

Comeback man Ishant Sharma also made an early inroad by dismissing Jos Buttler with a fuller length delivery. The ball didn’t move and struck Buttler adjacent to the middle stump. After consulting with his partner Moeen Ali, Buttler decided against going for the review. Centurion Moeen Ali was quick to follow Buttler in the dressing room as Umesh Yadav kept bowling short and at last induced a false shot from Ali. It was a quick delivery which cramped Ali for space and he managed to mistime it to Ravindra Jadeja who was fielding at square leg.

Adil Rashid and debutant Liam Dawson then took the matter into their own hands and started batting sensibly. They were ticking along the scoreboard and found the gaps occasionally. The duo shared a brilliant 108 run partnership for the 8th wicket to bail England out of trouble. It was a good display of resistance by two youngsters who is primarily in the team for their bowling. Rashid was dismissed by Umesh Yadav at his score 60 as the leg-spinner went for an expansive drive that took the outside edge and landed in the hands of Parthiv Patel.

Stuart Broad and Jake Ball was quick to follow as England eventually folded out for 477 in their 1st innings. Dawson remained unbeaten on 66, an innings constructed with 5 fours and a solitary maximum.

Murali Vijay who injured his left shoulder while fielding didn’t come out to open the batting with KL Rahul. Instead, Parthiv Patel opened the innings with Rahul and the duo batted sensibly to end Day 3 without the loss of a single wicket. Both Parthiv and Rahul looked composed in the middle and was hardly troubled by any of the English bowlers. India finished the day at 60/0 with Parthiv batting on 29 and Rahul undefeated on 30

Twitteratti was pretty active throughout the day’s play and there were certain tweets which described the proceedings in the best possible way. Here are some of the best tweets from then 2nd day’s play.