Watch: In the fourth-innings chase at Ranchi, Rohit Sharma flicked James Anderson for an audacious six over mid-wicket.
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England made 353 at Ranchi and reduced India to 177-7, but the hosts recovered strongly to post 307 and bowl out the tourists for 145 on the third day. Chasing 192, the Indian openers made 40-0 in the eight overs before stumps.
Ben Stokes opened the bowling with James Anderson and Shoaib Bashir on the fourth morning. Five runs came off the first two overs. Yashasvi Jaiswal glanced the first ball of the third over for a run, and Rohit Sharma played out the next two balls.
The Ranchi pitch has offered variable bounce, but unlike many Indian pitches, the occasional ball has kept low, not bounced awkwardly. In their respective first innings, both Joe Root and Dhruv Jurel had countered this by going on the front foot by default.
Rohit responded the same way during India’s fourth innings chase. On the third evening, he had taken overpitched balls from Tom Hartley on the full and played them to the mid-wicket fence.
Now, with mid-on up, he stepped out against Anderson and played an audacious flick over the fielder – a shot he had played on numerous occasions inside the powerplay during last year’s World Cup.
The shot involved risk, for had the ball kept lower than Rohit had anticipated, it would not have got enough elevation to clear the fielder. However, the bounce was true this time, and the ball soared into the stands for the first six of the Indian innings.
At the time of writing, India were 67-0 with Rohit on 42 and Jaiswal on 25.
