100OTH TEST Classy Kohli keeps
We can’t dwell on dropped catches
there. No one means to drop catches and on another day they would be taken but you can’t dwell on those things too much, especially in a game like this.
“There will be more chances coming at you straight away. It was a frustrating knock at the end but we still have to feel positive going into day three.”
Malan dropped Kohli twice fielding at second slip. Cook also dropped Hardik Pandya when he had yet to score.
But it was the India captain who made England pay dearest, making 149 and adding 92 with Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav for the last two wickets.
Curran, 20, admitted England were frustrated after having reduced India to 110-5 at one stage and pointed out Kohli used up more than his fair share of luck.
“He did nick a lot of balls outside off stump that didn’t carry,” said Curran. “But we stuck to our plans well and on another day they will carry.”
Curran had opened up India’s top order with a spell of three wickets in seven balls and later said he was still getting over the thrill of playing at this level.
“It was a pretty special day for me with the ball and a pretty cool feeling going on a field with my heroes Jimmy, Broady and Stokesy and running into bowl against Kohli – people and players who I have grown up watching. It has been a great learning curve.”
Jos Buttler sustained a finger injury at gully getting a hand to a tough chance from Kohli when he was on nought and was sent for an X-ray at hospital. But the batsman was given the green light and returned to the field. IT WAS a battle from start to finish and one during which Virat Kohli’s back was never far from the wall, but a fine century from India’s captain single-handedly kept his side’s hopes alive in the first Test.
The swing of Sam Curran, which yielded 4-74, and Jimmy Anderson, who took 2-41, bookended around a spell of raw aggression from Ben Stokes, ensured England ended day two in front – just.
The final ball of an enthralling day saw Alastair Cook dismissed by Ravi Ashwin for the second time in AT EDGBASTON the match as England closed on 9-1, a lead of just 22 runs.
But thanks to Kohli’s 149 that advantage, which had threatened to be well into three figures when England reduced India to 169-7 just after tea, gave India hope when they should have been blasted out of sight.
This was a compelling day of Test cricket in which England’s triumphs in laying waste to his team-mates only served to exceptional determination stark relief.
He had moments of good fortune, edging Anderson twice just short of wicketkeeper and slip early in his innings, and was twice dropped, both times by Dawid Malan at second slip, first on 21 then a more difficult chance on 51.
When Kohli was finally prised out just after 6pm, cutting low to Stuart Broad at backward point off Adil Rashid, the first, easier blunder by Malan had cost England 128 runs.
What his innings costs in the longer term with regard to this Specsavers Series is leave Kohli’s skill and standing in more pertinent given this laid waste to any remaining self-doubt Kohli might carry in his kit bag, namely his skill against a laterally-moving ball in England.
Where in 2014 his 134 runs were punctuated with 10 dismissals, here he made his ground constantly dodging bullets and, as England failed to take their chances, delivering a masterclass in pragmatism.
Kohli’s personal milestone – no one else in the India lineup came close with opener Shikhar Dhawan a long step down on 26 – may not have been matched by team-mates but England’s efforts with the ball made it a day when he did not hog all the limelight. Not quite. Curran was just four years old when Anderson made his Test debut back in 2003 but here the two paired up to highlight that both ends of England’s conveyor belt are in reasonably good order.
Curran’s intervention in the first session blew India’s top order apart in only his second Test, a spell of three wickets in seven deliveries in the morning session electrifying England’s effort.
It came just at the right time with India’s openers Dhawan and Murali Vijay building well at 50-0 and Joe Root asking the umpires for a ball change.
It was just as well because in his third over Curran