Published: Dec 17, 2012, 02:21 PM (IST)
Edited: Dec 17, 2012, 02:21 PM (IST)
Ravichandran Ashwin picked up the wicket of Jonathan Trott © Getty Images
Nagpur: Dec 17, 2012
England have extended their lead to 314 despite India taking the crucial wicket of Jonathan Trott before Tea on the final day of the Nagpur Test.
Trott was dismissed after scoring 143, helping England to ensure a historic series win over India in the four-match Test series after 27 years.
Earlier, at lunch, Trott had played for five hours, faced 248 balls and hit 14 fours, while Bell has batted for 213 minutes, struck 10 fours in 160 balls and the duo has added 146 runs for the unfinished fourth wicket off 329 balls.
With only one more sessions left to bring down curtains on the rubber and the visiting team batsmen hardly troubled by the toothless Indian attack on a slow pitch, England were almost past the finish line to win their first series in India since the 1984-85 triumph by David Gower‘s men.
Incidentally, just like Alastair Cook and his men have done in this rubber, Gower’s outfit too rebounded after losing the opening Test. In the current rubber, England lost the Ahmedabad Test before bouncing back to square the series at Mumbai and then clinch an unassailable 2-1 lead at Kolkata in east India.
When play started on Monday morning, England stuck firmly to the task of batting India out of the game on the final day of the series and clinch the four-match rubber.
The visitors, in contrast to the run-crawl on Sunday, were a lot more positive in their approach with Ian Bell, in particular, playing some superb carpet drives and a glorious pull shot off Ishant Sharma on the wicket of low bounce.
He was the more aggressive partner Monday morning in his fourth-wicket century stand with the 31-year-old South Africa-born Trott that was raised when Bell off-drove R Ashwin fluently to the rope.
Brief Scores: England 330 & 310 for 4 (Jonathan Trott 143, Ian Bell 87*; R Ashwin 2 for 69) lead India 326 for 9 dec. (Virat Kohli 103, MS Dhoni 99; James Anderson 4 for 81, Graeme Swann 3 for 76) by 314 runs.
Catch live scores and ball-by-ball commentary of the final day’s play here
