Twitter Reactions: India go down at Oval but fighting

Two Indian batsmen scored a hundred but it was England's day and their Test match.

By Ankit Mishra

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Jimmy Anderson of England
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Jimmy Anderson of England celebrates with teammates after dismissing Mohammed Shami. (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

When England put India in to bat on the fourth evening and they were reduced to 2/3, things looked really gloomy. But then a certain KL Rahul stood up, he had the deputy skipper Ajinkya Rahane for company. The two of them played out the first half hour of the day really well and the initial threat was dealt with. But England kept chipping away with wickets and in the end, bowled India out with 14 overs left in the day and won the match by 118 runs.

The Rahul-Rahane partnership matured into a century stand but against the run of play, Rahane top-edged a sweep off Moeen Ali and was out for 37. Hanuma Vihari after a memorable fifty in his maiden Test innings was out for a duck in the second. The flamboyant Rishabh Pant now took charge with the opener at the other end. They kept smaller targets and were well on course.

Batting was as easy as it has ever been in the series, the ball was hardly doing anything. Little to no swing it occasionally spun out of the rough for the spinners but even then, the Indian batsmen are qualified enough to deal with most of it. Rahul got to his hundred, converted his first fifty on the tour into a big knock and didn’t really celebrate as the job wasn’t done yet.

Both the batsmen continued to play their shots and runs were coming thick for the Indians. There was a point when the asking rate came into the picture as the scoring rate was higher. With the way, Rahul and Pant were going it’d have forced England to think of plan B as well, most of which would’ve relied on the second new ball. Pant in the meantime smacked Adil Rashid out of the park to get to his maiden Test hundred in some style.

Their partnership was worth 204 runs and then Rashid got one to turn square from the rough way outside the right-hander’s leg-stump, it turned such a long way to hit the top of Rahul’s off-stump. He was out for 149 to the same bowler who dismissed him for 199 on the tour of India.

Pant took a risk too big and holed out in the deep also off the leg-spinner for 114. It was the end of the story for India then and the wait was just for the curtains to fall down. James Anderson who was at levels with Glen McGrath till that point uprooted Mohammed Shami’s middle-stump to take his team to victory and register his name as the highest Test wicket-taker among pacers.

Here is how the world of Twitter reacted to another English victory:

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