India leave England tottering at 18/2 at tea after Jaiswal’s sessional double ton

Rajkot: After Yashasvi Jaiswal demolished their belief with a sensational unbeaten 214, England were in further turmoil at tea, slipping to 18 for two in their second innings while chasing an improbable 557-run target on the fourth day of the third Test here on Sunday.

They now need a 539 runs more in four sessions for an unlikely win. Jaiswal's 236-ball magnum opus, in which he equaled the most number of sixes in a Test innings (12), allowed India to declare their second innings at 430 for four, but that was only the beginning of England's troubles as it panned out.

Opener Ben Duckett had already made the war cry after the third day when he said “let them (India) have as many as they want (runs) and we’ll go and get them”, but he was the first to perish with a horrible run out.

Duckett, having flicked one on the leg side kept running even though his partner Zak Crawley was scantly interested. Eventually, Duckett ran himself out for four.

At the stroke of tea, pacer Jasprit Bumrah moved one back sharply into Crawley (11) to pin him in front of the wickets. The English opener opted for DRS but the decision stayed with the umpire’s call.

But the genesis of England's slithering away to oblivion was in Jaiswal's innings. The left-hander clobbered 12 sixes, the most by an Indian in a Test innings and equal with Wasim Akram's record that he set 28 years ago.

Jaiswal’s unbeaten double century — his second in as many games — came up in the second session when the Indians launched an onslaught against the helpless England bowlers, smacking runs at nearly seven an over.

His bruising innings's highlight was when the 22-year-old hammered the 41-year-old bowling legend James Anderson for three consecutive sixes.

Jaiswal put on 172 runs in almost no time for the unbeaten fifth wicket with Sarfaraz Khan, who notched up his second fifty of the game to reach 68 not out from only 72 balls with six fours and three sixes when skipper Rohit Sharma made the declaration call.

Earlier, Shubman Gill (91) missed out on a deserving century.

Jaiswal and Sarfaraz came out with the clear intent of attacking from the word go as India piled up 116 runs in the first 16 overs of the second session, with England crumbling under pressure.

On a true batting wicket England spinners not only failed to find the right length but fed the Indians with full tosses more often than not, who happily cashed in on freebies.

In the third over post lunch and 85th of the innings, Anderson missed his length to end up with a full toss which Jaiswal flicked over fine leg for a six. On the next, Jaiswal stepped out to hammer another six over extra cover.

As if to pile further misery, Jaiswal smacked Anderson over his head for the third six of the over.

In the process, Jaiswal went past Navjot Singh Sidhu’s record of eight sixes during his 124 against Sri Lanka at Lucknow in 1994 and Mayank Agarwal’s eight against South Africa at Visakhapatnam in 2019.

Jaiswal became only the third Indian after Vinod Kambli and Virat Kohli to hit double hundreds in two consecutive Tests and only the seventh Indian ever to have scored in excess of 200 in the second innings.