India vs England: Wasim Jaffer shares Dangal meme to motivate hosts ahead of fifth day's play

Going into the fifth day of the Chepauk Test, India had a massive task at hand. Chasing 420 runs in the fourth innings, India already found themselves on the backfoot after Jack Leach castled Rohit Sharma with an absolute peach. Rohit pressed forward but saw his stumps go for a walk. The pitch was showing signs of deterioration and ominous signs were on show on day four.

Shubman Gill and Cheteshwar Pujara were the overnight batters and they had a massive task at hand to save India from a defeat. In the meantime, a fan asked Wasim Jaffer, the former Indian batsman, about the hosts’ tactics on the final day’s play.

The fan took to Twitter and wrote, “What should be India’s batting plan tomorrow day 5? @WasimJaffer14 #INDvENG,”

In reply, Jaffer shared a meme from the superhit Bollywood movie ‘Dangal’, which was about two young wrestlers going up the ranks, fighting against the societal prejudices. The movie, featuring Amir Khan, garnered a lot of praises from the critics.

Here’s Wasim Jaffer’s reply:

#INDvsENG https://t.co/ctLOql8VBm pic.twitter.com/OKkpitPZBj

— Wasim Jaffer (@WasimJaffer14) February 8, 2021

Earlier Jon Lewis, England’s bowling coach, before the last day’s play, didn’t want to undermine Virat Kohli and Co bearing in mind that the home team has a power-packed batting unit. He sounded confident of the Three Lions playing well and taking a 1-0 lead in the opening Test at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai.

“It’s the first game of the series. We want a strong start. You don’t really want to give India a chance to win. They have some fine players. And you need to have big runs to keep an attacking field for the spinners all day tomorrow. With that many runs on board, we are ahead in the game. We are confident we can create enough chances to win the game tomorrow,” Lewis said.

“The pitch is good but tricky. So, acceleration against experienced Indians in India isn’t always straightforward. It’s not a pitch where one can be reckless to score runs. We were very confident about the number of overs we wanted to bowl tonight. That gives a bit of time, if we need the second new ball tomorrow, 20 overs or so,” he added.