It was England who took day two’s honours at Chennai after India got off to a dream start in the first session. The visitors accumulated a mammoth first innings score of 477 and the Indians reached 60/0, steered by a steady opening stand by KL Rahul (30 not out) and Parthiv Patel (28 not out).
India snared three quick wickets to reduce England to 321/7. Overnight batsman Ben Stokes was beaten by Ravichandran Ashwin’s flight on the ball, nicking it to the keeper. Jos Buttler was caught plumb in front by Ishant Sharma with a delivery that seamed back into the batsman sharply off good length.
England looked in danger of undoing their hard work from the first day when centurion Moeen Ali fell to the short-ball trap set by Umesh Yadav.
Adil Rashid (60) and debutant Liam Dawson (66 not out) set about resurrecting the English innings by patiently seeing things out through to lunch. In the second session, the batsmen upped the ante with some confident drives and dealt with the spin threat of Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja with aplomb.
Rashid and Dawson added 108 crucial runs for England for the ninth wicket. Valuable lower-order runs from Stuart Broad and Jake Ball meant that England got past the 450-mark with ease. The wicket had little demons, which made the Indian spinners work hard for their wickets. The prolific Ashwin ending up with figures of 1/151 summed up India’s toils.
To make matters worse, the hosts also lost opener Murali Vijay to a shoulder injury. Patel, the makeshift opener, and Rahul were in solid touch and played risk-free cricket to ensure that India ended the day on a good note.
Brief scores:
England 477 (Moeen Ali 146, Joe Root 88, Liam Dawson 66 not out; Ravindra Jadeja 3/106, Ishant Sharma 2/42) lead India 60/0 (KL Rahul 30 not out, Parthiv Patel 28 not out) by 417 runs