Mohammad Shami bounces out England with his short ball policy

It was a terrific display by Virat Kohli and his young brigade to win the 3rd Test against England and gain an unassailable 2-0 lead in the 5 match series. Beginning the day at 78/4, England lost their fifth wicket in the 2nd over of the day without any addition to their overnight score. Jos Buttler and Joe Root were also dismissed in quick succession as the visitors were precariously placed at 152/7.

With the fall of Root’s wicket, Chris Woakes joined teenager Haseeb Hameed in the middle as the duo batted with conviction to take the visitor’s lead past the 50 mark. Both Hameed and Woakes displayed incredible mental toughness and spirit as their resilience was slowly hurting the Indians.

The duo batted out the spin threat of Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Jayant Yadav and was just starting to show their teammates that if you dig in hard then scoring runs is not that difficult on these tracks.

After using the spinners for a couple of overs with the new ball, Virat Kohli decided to hand the ball to Mohammad Shami. The exceptional fast bowler from Bengal had given the Indian supporters two moments of magic in the last two months. First when he castled BJ Watling at Kolkata and very recently when he shattered the stumps of England captain Alastair Cook.

Shami who was given the ball in the 83rd over bowled a well directed short pitch delivery on the very first ball which hit Woakes on the helmet and the rear of the helmet protecting the neck fell on the ground. Both Shami and Kohli were quick to go and enquire whether he was fine.

Shami who knew Woakes was rattled by the short ball, showed no mercy and went for yet another one. Woakes was very late on the ball as it took the edge of the bat and ballooned up to wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel who completed a regulation catch.

In came Adil Rashid and Shami greeted him with a perfect outswinger. He immediately followed it up with a beautifully directed bouncer and Rashid was in no position to pull or hook it. He somehow managed to hook it but only to find Umesh Yadav at fine leg.

Courtesy his brilliant spell in the middle, Shami ensured that England had a meager lead of 61 with a wicket left before Hameed and James Anderson stitched together a 39-run tenth wicket partnership to give India 103 runs to chase in their 2nd innings.

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