India ended day four of the first Test against England on 39-1, needing another 381 to win, after Jack Leach removed Rohit Sharma to leave the tourists nine wickets from victory in Chennai; R Ashwin earlier claimed six-for and Ishant Sharma took 300th Test wicket
Monday 8 February 2021 15:34, UK
Jack Leach removed Rohit Sharma late on day four to leave England needing nine wickets on the final day to win the first Test in Chennai.
Set 420 to win after England dragged out their second innings, India closed on 39-1 as Shubman Gill (15no) and Cheteshwar Pujara (12no) made it safely through the last half hour.
After Leach and Jimmy Anderson had taken two wickets apiece to wrap up India's first innings on 337 before lunch, Joe Root again top-scored for the tourists, making a breezy 40 from 32 balls, but there was less urgency as the innings went on and it eventually fizzled out on 178.
Ravichandran Ashwin claimed his 28th five-wicket haul in Tests, finishing with 6-61, while Ishant Sharma took his 300th in the format when he got Dan Lawrence lbw.
India require an unlikely, but not insurmountable, 381 runs to win on day five but England will hope to justify their decision to bat on and take the wickets they need to wrap up victory on a deteriorating pitch, in a match they have dominated for large spells.
England were made to work for the four wickets they needed in the morning session to end the hosts' first dig with Washington Sundar playing beautifully to finish on a career-best 85 not out as he stretched his partnership with Ashwin to 80 with a flurry of elegant strokes.
The pair were helped by a tired start from Dom Bess after his four-wicket effort on day three and even when England took the second new ball, it wasn't until Leach came back into the attack that they found the breakthrough.
The left-arm spinner found some extra bounce with his second ball and it popped up off the shoulder of Ashwin's bat, giving Jos Buttler just enough time to come round from behind the stumps and take a diving catch.
Shahbaz Nadeem followed, more extra bounce helping Leach to find the edge and Ben Stokes snaffled the chance at slip.
Anderson returned and even with the ball barely 10 overs old, he got it reversing to beat Sundar's edge five balls in a row before the left-hander pumped the last back over his head for six.
Anderson struck in his next over though, surprising Ishant with a short ball that he could only fend off to Ollie Pope at short leg and, after Sundar moved into the 80s with a maximum off Root, England's premier seamer wrapped up the innings when he found Jasprit Bumrah's edge and Stokes held on to a blinding one-handed catch as he dived low to his right.
India were well behind in the game, trailing by 241 on first innings, but there will have been a few nerves in the England camp when Ashwin produced a beauty to dismiss Rory Burns with the first ball of the second innings, turn and bounce helping the off-spinner locate the edge and Ajinkya Rahane took the catch.
Dom Sibley (16) and Lawrence settled those nerves a little after lunch, adding 32 before the former was caught at leg slip, the victim of another sharp-turning delivery from Ashwin.
As ever, the demons in the pitch seemed to vanish when Root arrived, he quickly got off the mark by sweeping Ashwin to the fence and added another later in the same over.
The sweeps, and subsequent boundaries, kept coming and Root raced into the 20s with a strike-rate just shy of 200, but others found it trickier and Lawrence (18) fell lbw to a reverse-swinging delivery as Ishant claimed his milestone scalp.
Stokes was the next to fall to Ashwin, feathering behind as he pushed at a ball wide of off stump, having just thumped Nadeem for a one-bounce four.
Root had taken the lead past 300 with a reverse-sweep for four and had seven boundaries to his name before he was undone by Bumrah. The fast bowler was reverse-swinging the ball nicely and when it stayed low as well, there was nothing even the in-form England captain could do to prevent it hitting him plumb in front.
Pope and Buttler took England through to tea, scoring steadily, and the youngster drove the first ball after the break for four before adding a switch-hit off Nadeem for four more.
He miscued a reverse-sweep off the left-arm spinner next ball to depart for 28 and that was it for the expected England surge towards a declaration.
Instead, Buttler found himself stuck at the non-striker's end as Bess struggled to get going and the scoreboard slowly ground to a halt as the lead inched towards 400.
Bess (25) eventually got himself going with a couple of boundaries just prior to Buttler's (24) dismissal, the England wicketkeeper stumped after charging Nadeem, but fell himself in the next over, lbw to Ashwin after the third umpire decided the ball brushed his pad before a healthy inside edge.
Still England crawled on with India doing everything they could to slow things down and take time out of the game as well before the near-standstill was ended by two wickets in three balls from Ashwin to remove Jofra Archer and Anderson.
Root opted to open with the pace of Archer at one end and Leach's spin at the other, hoping to give the Somerset bowler maximum opportunity to make use of the ball while it was still hard and possessed a discernible seam.
It took until the sixth over but the plan worked as Rohit, having hooked Archer for six the over before, was castled by a beauty that drifted in before gripping to turn past the edge and clip off stump.
While Gill and Pujara saw out the rest of the day, there was encouragement for England as the pitch showed further signs of breaking up in the last few overs before stumps.
With all results still possible, there is a thrilling finish in prospect going into day five.
Follow over-by-over text commentary of day five of the first Test between India and England on the Sky Sports App and skysports.com from 4am on Tuesday.
