Ahmedabad: Pragyan Ojha snapped up five wickets to give India a mammoth
330-run lead before England staged a spirited fightback in the second
innings to give themselves a slight hope of saving the first cricket
Test here on Saturday.
England
were bundled out for 191 in the first innings with Ojha taking five for
45 while Ravichandran Ashwin took three wickets, prompting India to
enforce the follow-on.
But the script changed remarkably in the
second innings as skipper Alastair Cook (74 batting) and Nick Compton
(34 batting) steered England to 111 for no loss at close on an eventful
third day with the visitors still trailing by 219 runs.
With two
full days left in the match, India still hold the advantage of going 1-0
up in the four-match series. England will have to bat out of their skin
to save the game on a Sardar Patel track that appears to be getting
slower.
The visitors showed better application in the second
innings, after India, who scored a massive 521 for eight declared, asked
them to follow-on.
Left-arm spinner Ojha claimed his career`s
fourth five-wicket haul with figures of five for 45 in 22.2 overs in his
17th Test while Ashwin grabbed three for 80 in 27 overs.
Starting
the second innings after an early tea, Cook and debutant Compton, who
was out for nine in the first innings, put on an unbeaten century stand
to give England a fine start in their quest for avoiding an innings
defeat.
Neither Ojha, nor his off-spin partner Ashwin, could pose
as many problems to the English openers in the second essay as they did
in the first.
The spinners, especially Ashwin, also bowled a lot
flatter and did not stick to a consistent line of attack on a wicket
that became more and more placid as the game progressed.
PTI
England still have a huge task on hand and their first job on Sunday would be to wipe out the first-innings deficit.
The
manner in which Cook and Compton negotiated the Indian bowlers, in
stark contrast to what they did in the first, holds some hope for the
visitors.
England, who started the day at 41 for three, were
pushed to the brink before they adjourned for the lunch break at 110 for
seven. They fought back for a brief while through Matt Prior (48) and
Tim Bresnan (19).
Prior was the last man out when he lost his off stump to Ojha.
Prior's
was the top score of the innings with only captain Cook, who scored 41,
being the only other batsman to cross 40 in a pathetic display.
Prior,
who had come to the wicket at the fall of Ian Bell with the total
reading a miserable 69 for five, played with positive intent.
Bresnan faced 112 balls and hit a couple of boundaries, and showed better application than most of the front-line batsmen.
India
shuffled their bowlers constantly and Ojha got the breakthrough by
dismissing Bresnan and then followed it up with the wicket of Prior
after Zaheer got his only wicket of the innings, trapping Stuart Broad
leg before.
In the morning, Ojha picked up two wickets off
successive balls while Ashwin and medium pacer Umesh Yadav shared the
other two to leave the tourists 411 runs behind India's first innings
total at the end of first session.
Ojha packed off a
nervous-looking Kevin Pietersen (17) and a clueless Bell (0) at the same
score of 69 while Ashwin broke through the defense of Cook eleven runs
later.