Twitter Reactions: KL Rahul's masterclass and Rohit's 83 help India gain upper hand early in Lord's Test

India ended the day strongly at 276/3 and are well placed despite Kohli's wicket late in the day.

By Aditya Gajanan Kukalyekar verified

View : 20K

4 Min Read

KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma
info
KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma. (Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)

India have started the second Test at Lord’s strongly despite losing the toss. After being put in to bat in tricky conditions, the jam-packed stadium was treated to some high quality batting by KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma. Both the batsmen controlled their attacking instincts and dominated the day as they kept the England bowlers at bay. The result of it was India ending the day strongly at 276/3.

The start of play was delayed due to rain by 15 minutes and many felt England could pick early wickets given the conditions were on offer. Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul were in the middle to open the innings for India. What followed was attritional play of around 75 minutes. The duo, like they did at Trent Bridge, superbly survived the first hour.

The ball was hopping around in overcast conditions and James Anderson, the artist with the red cherry in hand, was making the ball talk a lot. However, Rahul and Rohit both perfectly knew where their off-stump was and left the ball really well. The best shot of the morning was – leave outside off-stump as India scored only 8 runs in nine overs. After so much hard work, just when they started to eke out quick runs with gorgeous drives, rain intervened again.

Umpires took early lunch then and the play resumed in bowling favouring conditions again. England would’ve hoped to strike soon but again India’s opening duo worked hard at the start to get their eyes in and it was Rohit Sharma who began accumulating runs with ease. Rahul, at the other end, was just playing a lot of dot balls but without much trouble.

There was so much ease in the running between the wickets of the two and there were a lot of amazing strokes from Rohit. It was like he dominated the opening partnership of 126 runs scoring 83 out of those. Rohit was looking good to notch up his first century outside Asia only for the genius James Anderson to deny him with a perfect incoming delivery breaching his defence.

Cheteshwar Pujara then continued to struggle at number three and there were fears of a similar collapse from the previous Test.

Rahul keeps India ahead with a majestic century

At 150/2, England were looking for a comeback. But KL Rahul took over the run-scoring soon after Rohit’s dismissal. He played a few flashy strokes to get boundaries and once runs starting coming from his bat, he never stopped. He smartly also played out the last over before tea to sort of protect skipper Virat Kohli from facing Anderson.

Anderson returned after tea for a three-over short spell having bowled six overs on the trot before that. But the veteran couldn’t have a real crack at Kohli as he would’ve liked. It helped the India captain get set and with back-up seamers bowling, runs came easily as sun came out to bake the pitch nicely.

Rahul, meanwhile, paced his innings beautifully taking 105 deliveries to reach 22 runs and then churned out constantly to end unbeaten on 120 by stumps. His celebration after reaching his 6th Test century was also subdued and there was determination to score more.

Virat Kohli, on the other hand, was extremely edgy to start with. However, he got comfortable as he spent more time in the middle. Soon, the wonderful cover drives were unfurled as he and Rahul added 117 runs for the third wicket. Just when the visitors were looking to end the day strongly, Ollie Robinson struck with the new ball to dismiss Kohli who was looking good at 42.

Ajinkya Rahane was brave to walk out in the last 25 minutes of the day and he survived the tricky phase along with Rahul. India will be looking to post a huge total on the board on the second day while England will have to strike regularly in the first session tomorrow to have any chance of making a comeback.

Here’s how Twitter reacted:

https://twitter.com/Cricketracker/status/1425876710390521858?s=20

 

 

Get every cricket updates! Follow Us:

googletelegraminstagramwhatsappyoutubethreadstwitter

Download Our App

For a better experience: Download the CricTracker app from the IOS and Google Play Store
IndiaEngland