Gill, Jurel guides India to series win

A crucial partnership between Shubman Gill and Dhruv Jurel helped India to settle nerves and win the Ranchi test. With that, the hosts have now taken an unassailable 3-1 lead in the 5 match series against England. This was also the first series loss for the three lions under Stokes-McCullum reign.

India, continuing from 40/0, started in spectacular fashion on the fourth morning. Rohit Sharma swatted James Anderson over wide long-on for a remarkable six whereas Yashasvi Jaiswal took his time to get into his element and displayed a wide range of shots like he has done throughout the series so far. The openers put India in the driver's seat at one point, adding 84 without any loss before Jaiswal got carried away and tried to take on Joe Root, only to badly mistime it to backward point. 

Jaiswal’s dismissal opened the floodgates for the visitors. Rohit, who eased past 50, perished soon after. Next to depart was Rajat Patidar. The youngster, already under tremendous pressure, was caught in front of the wicket by Shoaib Bashir as India went from 84/0 to 100/3. The fall of Patidar brought Ravindra Jadeja to the crease. India, now had the challenge of surviving till lunch and they managed to see off the nervy period unscathed. 

However, post lunch the hosts were handed an early blow in the form of Ravindra Jadeja. The all rounder gifted his wicket to the visitors. He hit a juicy full toss right down the throat of the player positioned at midwicket. A game full of ebbs and flows was seeing another twist in the tail. Shoaib Bashir led the charge for England as he picked three crucial wickets to leave the opposition reeling at 120/4. The visitors then put themselves in a commanding position when Bashir struck again off the very next delivery. Sarfaraz Khan, who had scored a fifty apiece in his debut, inside edged one to find the fielder at short leg. A cautious 30 over spell without a boundary eventually came to an end when wicket keeper batter Jurel drove one through the covers to put a smile back on the local crowd. 

Both Gill and Jurel managed to play the spinners without much discomfort and rotated strikes on regular intervals as India inched closer to the target. Gill in particular showed exemplary temperament and composure to hold one end firmly when his side was losing wickets at the other end prior to the match winning partnership. And with only 20 runs away from victory, Gill finally registered his first boundary off the 120th ball he faced as he danced down the track twice in a span of three balls to clear the fence and reach his fifty in the process. Jurel, who led India’s resurgence in the Test with a well crafted 90 in the first innings, finished the job in the subsequent over to round off an exciting Test match. 

Brief scores: England 353 (Joe Root 122*; Ravindra Jadeja 4/67) & 145 (Zak Crawley 60; R Ashwin 5/51) lost to India 307 (Dhruv Jurel 90; Shoaib Bashir 5/119) & 192/5 (Rohit Sharma 55, Shubman Gill 52*; Shoaib Bashir 3/79) by 5 wickets