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England on the ropes after Nair triple
- Updated: December 19, 2016
England 477 and 12 for 0 trail India 759 for 7 dec (Nair 303*, Rahul 199) by 270 runs Live scorecard and ball-by-ball details
Back in March 2008, the MA Chidambaram Stadium witnessed the first triple-hundred on Indian soil, as Virender Sehwag plundered 319 against South Africa. Eight-and-a-half years later, the stadium’s revamped stands became the backdrop to the first triple-hundred by any Indian batsman apart from Sehwag. That batsman, Karun Nair, was playing his third Test match, and was only playing because India’s middle order had lost two of its regular occupants to injury.
When India next play a Test match, they will need to choose who to leave out – and perhaps even which two – among Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma and Nair, a man with an unbeaten 303 in his last innings. Three hundred and three, not out. A square-cut brought up the landmark; Alastair Cook had brought all his men into single-saving positions with Nair on 299. Adil Rashid dropped short, Nair slapped it away, and Cook just happened to be the fielder diving uselessly to his left from cover point.
The declaration came right then, with India 759 for 7. It was their highest-ever total, against anyone. It was the highest total against England, by anyone. It left England, starting their second innings with a deficit of 282, 16 minutes to get through to stumps.
By the time Virat Kohli called his batsmen off the field, they had inflicted as much mental disintegration upon England as they have faced anywhere in the time since Carl Rackemann coined the term during the 1989 Ashes. At lunch, India still trailed by 14 runs. At tea, they led by 105. So far, so Mumbai, on a pitch that was rather flatter than Mumbai, and England didn’t seem in any immediate danger of defeat. By the time India declared, an innings defeat wasn’t out of the question. Alastair Cook and Keaton Jennings got through to stumps unscathed, but their task has barely begun.
England have it all to do on the last day of a sapping tour of the subcontinent. …
