A resilient Jos Buttler guided England to 385/8 at lunch against India in their first innings on the second day of the fourth cricket Test match.

Resuming at their overnight score of 288/5, Jos Buttler struck a crucial half century to pull England towards a decent first innings score. He was unbeaten on 64, accompanied by Jake Ball (29 batting) at lunch.

India’s premier spinner Ravichandran Ashwin (5-102) picked up his 23rd five-wicket haul in Tests, dismissing Ben Stokes (31) who was caught by Virat Kohli.

India picked up three wickets in the first session of the day, shared by spinners Ravichandran Ashwin, who picked one and Ravindra Jadeja (3-105), who got the other two.

England added 97 runs in 31 overs in the opening session of play, losing three wickets.

Ashwin provided India with the day’s first breakthrough early, edging Ashwin to Kohli to slip.

The ball clipped keeper Parthiv Patel’s pads before landing to Kohli, who quickly asked for a review. The third umpire judged it in India’s favour.

Chris Woakes prodded his way to 11 runs, before getting undone by a sharp turning delivery that kissed his bat and was sharply caught by Patel.

Adil Rashid also went soon after, leaving a straight Jadeja delivery to be bowled.

England were reduced to 334/8 and were staring of being bowled out under 350.

But Buttler-Ball then began the resurrection work, putting on undefeated 51-run stand for the ninth wicket.

IANS

Debutant Keaton Jennings put up an impressive show, pulling England to 117/1 at lunch on the first day of the fourth Test match against India here on Thursday.

Jennings was batting on 65 and No.3 Joe Root was unbeaten on 5 when lunch was called, with 31 overs bowled during the first session of play.

England skipper Alastair Cook was the only batsman dismissed at 46 when he was stumped by Parthiv Patel off the bowling of left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja.

England put on 99 for the opening wicket after winning the toss and electing to bat at the Wankhede Stadium.

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Cook’s decision of taking first strike seemed vindicated when he and Jennings put together a strong partnership.

They scored at a brisk rate of nearly four runs an over till Cook was foxed by Jadeja to come out of his crease and sharply stumped by Patel in the 26th over.

They were cautious yet firm to put away bad deliveries without hesitation.

Cook became the sixth batsman to score 2000 or more Test runs against India during his innings, when he reached 19.

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Cook is the first England batsman to achieve the feat against India, which have some elite names — Ricky Ponting, Clive Lloyd, Javed Miandad, Shivanarine Chanderpaul and Michael Clarke.

Both teams were forced to make changes to their playing XI, with India naming opener K.L.Rahul and pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar and England naming Jennings and Kate Ball.

IANS