KOHLI MAY GET LAST LAUGH
Mo’s magic stuns India but crumbling pitch gives hosts the edge
ON a day when facial expressions told the story, the look with which Virat Kohli reacted to Moeen Ali’s ‘ magic ball’ proved an anomaly.
As he stood in eye-bulging bewilderment in response to the devilishly delivered offspinner from Moeen that snaked through a flimsy cover drive to dislodge a bail, his act of bravura spanning minutes rather than seconds, it would have been easy to assume that it was India who had been hard done by as the Test series resumed in Chennai.
However, the brief reincarnation of WG Grace after falling for a five- ball duck shortly before lunch would be trumped by the incredulous reactions of Joe Root’s England during the evening session.
Not once but twice the tourists were controversially denied dismissals by television umpire Anil Chaudhary, who had been so impressive on the field during England’s 227-run win on the same ground last week but incompetent in charge of technology.
First, there were puzzled expressions from England’s fielders following an appeal for a stumping when Rohit Sharma was on 159 — no part of the batsman’s boot appeared to be behind the line as the recalled Ben Foakes whipped off the bails, yet Chaudhary charged headlong into a hasty not out decision.
Paul Collingwood, England’s assistant coach, seemed to sum up the views of a global television audience, when he tweeted: ‘Erm how many cameras in the ground @ StarSportsIndia and there’s only one angle apart from stump cam for that stumping? Surprising…’
Then, the English picture of frustration turned to ire when Virender Sharma’s decision to turn down a bat-pad catch appeal against Ajinkya Rahane was challenged and Chaudhary did not run through to completion of the catch by Ollie Pope.
Had he done so, it would have revealed, as the close catchers suspected, that although the ball missed the inside edge and struck pad, it brushed Rahane’s gloves during the flourish of his stroke. When Root emerged from his t eam’s huddle to appeal to Sharma to ask for this aspect to be checked again, Chaudhary oddly applied the pitch map to rule out a legbefore.
Thankfully neither incident, four overs apart off the bowling of Jack Leach, proved costly. Rohit added just two runs and Rahane one, before the former swept the Somerset slow leftarmer to deep square leg and Moeen struck timber for the second time, as India slipped from 240-3 to 249-5.
However, they served to highlight how drastically momentum has shifted from England towards India since the completion of a brilliant first Test win at the MA Chidambaram Stadium four days earlier.
India gambled on a crumbling surface in response and cashed in by winning the toss as a crowd — restricted to 9,000 by the Indian board’s Covid protocols but noisy nevertheless — featured for the first time in 28 England internationals.
It had been quietened when Olly Stone — replacing the injured Jofra Archer in one of four changes — struck with the third ball of his first Test overseas, and ninth of the match, following an injudicious shouldering of arms by Shubman Gill. And completely silenced when Moeen celebrated his own return from 18 months in the wilderness by embarrassing Kohli, his Bangalore Indian Premier League teammate and friend. In the circumstances, it was something of a surprise that the Indian captain didn’t signal for a review.
‘That magic ball to get Kohli was very special — a world-class delivery,’ said Leach, who had cannily induced Cheteshwar Pujara to run the ball to slip in the previous over.
But the opening exchanges of a contest designed not to last were dominated by India — and Rohit in particular.
Arguably taking his lead from Root’s double hundred on an adjacent pitch, Rohit introduced the sweep, a stroke seldom used by India’s batsmen last week.
A couple in quick succession to the boundary off Leach took him to a 47-ball 50. By lunch, his contribution to India’s 107-3 was 80.
Rohit made hay on a parched field, and an indication of how hard things will become deeper into this Test were provided as early as the ninth over when Leach was introduced to explosions of dust on a fourth-day pitch masquerading as a first-day one. With reverse swing conspicuous by its absence due to a less abrasive, crumblier surface, it was not apparent where a wicket would come from as Rohit powered to a seventh Test hundred, and Rahane returned to form following his Gabba glory comedown last week.
In fact, there were times during a wicketless second session that England cried out for the golden arm of Dom Bess, dropped following concerns about his control. Root is also a wicket- t aker, however, and profited from darting the ball into the pitch from around the wicket in the final half-hour when Ravichandran Ashwin used his feet to attempt to smother the spin but only diverted the ball to Pope under the helmet.
But it was generally winces rather than smiles for England, who nevertheless insisted that Ben Stokes’ knee was fine despite him sending down just two overs on a chastening resumption of hostilities on the subcontinent.