INDIA v ENGLAND: 3rd TEST RATINGS
INDIA
ROHIT SHARMA 8/10
AGAIN made batting look ridiculously easy when it was anything but: 91 runs for once out was a triumph.
SHUBMAN GILL 6
TOOK 27 balls to get off the mark on the first evening and was eventually undone by a short one from Archer. Had licence to play a few shots second time round.
CHETESHWAR PUJARA 4
A QUIET game after being trapped for a duck by Leach. Since making 73 in the first Test has managed only 43 more in four innings — a rare fallow run in home conditions.
VIRAT KOHLI 7
HIS 27 on the first evening proved more useful than he might have imagined. Easy game as captain: just throw the ball to Ashwin and Patel.
AJINKYA RAHANE 4
MISJUDGED a straight one from Leach and has now scored 85 in five innings — 67 of them in one knock.
RISHABH PANT 6
FAILED with the bat, like so many others, but his keeping was sharp. The biggest compliment possible is that his glovework lost little in comparison with Foakes.
RAVICHANDRAN 8 ASHWIN
OUTBOWLED by Patel — and possibly by Root — but still managed seven wickets in the match. Has passed 400 dismissals in Tests, confirming his status as a giant of the game. His first-innings 17 proved handy, too, giving India a small but useful lead.
WASHINGTON SUNDAR 6
HOW do you rate a player who was bowled for a duck by an unplayable delivery from Root and took a wicket with one of only four deliveries he bowled? The 21-year-old off-spinner didn’t do much but didn’t do much wrong either.
AXAR PATEL 9
HIS left-arm spin was lethal on a surface where the batsmen had to guess if the ball would turn or go straight on: nine of his 11 wickets were bowled or lbw. After two Tests, he has 18 wickets at nine apiece.
ISHANT SHARMA 6
MARKED his 100th Test with the wicket of Sibley and hit the first six of his career. But could have watched the rest of the game in pipe and slippers as India’s spinners took over.
JASPRIT BUMRAH 6
ANOTHER who played only a walk-on part: six good overs for 19 and hung around for 22 minutes at No 11.
ENGLAND
ZAK CRAWLEY 7
BATTED beautifully in the first innings before the spinners came on — only Sharma challenged him for fluency. His second-innings first-baller kicked off England’s procession.
DOM SIBLEY 3
ONE of only two wickets in the match for a seamer, which looks like carelessness. At least he tried to use his feet in the second innings rather than be a sitting duck.
JONNY BAIRSTOW 1
A LONG way to come for a pair but gets a point for sympathy because he looked in decent nick in Sri Lanka and was then rested for the first two Tests in India. Being asked to resume at No 3 in these conditions was the definitive hospital pass but he didn’t help himself with a grim two-ball duck on the second day.
JOE ROOT 7
SURVIVED more than an hour in each innings but was ground down by the accuracy of India’s spinners. The fact that he took five for eight said something about the pitch but also about his tendency to under-rate his own off-breaks. And it was bad news for the watching Dom Bess. England’s skipper was close to the line with the way he spoke to the umpires about the TV official.
BEN STOKES 6
FELL twice more to his nemesis, Ashwin, but briefly gave England hope in the second innings with a counterattacking 25. Three wicketless overs for 19 look expensive in the context of the match.
OLLIE POPE 3
BOWLED twice by Ashwin — first from round the wicket, then from over it — and looked as much at sea as any of England’s batsmen. Was fortunate that his drop of captain Kohli on the first evening didn’t prove expensive.
BEN FOAKES 6
FOUGHT hard with the bat for little return and at times looked more secure than some of his top-order colleagues. His keeping remains a delight. On another day a different third umpire might have added to his growing tally of stumpings.
JOFRA ARCHER
6 BOWLED only five overs, in which he bounced out Gill. Hard to justify his position at No 8 after he tried to sweep a halfvolley from Ashwin in the second innings.
JACK LEACH
7 REMOVED India’s big guns — Sharma, Pujara and Kohli — and picked up four or more in an innings for the fifth time this winter. Not as accurate as fellow left-armer Patel and was left with an impossible task in the fourth innings.
STUART BROAD 6
THOUGHT he’d removed Gill for a duck in the first innings but that was more or less the end of his contribution on the kind of surface he’d be happy never to see again.
JAMES ANDERSON 6
DIDN’T score a run or take a wicket but would have removed Kohli for the first time since 2014 if Pope hadn’t put down a straightforward chance in the gully. Found none of the reverse swing that helped bowl England win the first Test.