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3rd Test, Day 2: Pujara, Kohli guides India to 148/2 at Tea

The England all-rounder appeared to stop briefly as he walked off, after being stumped off the bowling of Ravindra Jadeja, to engage with some of the India fielders – including captain Virat Kohli.

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At the end of second day’s play between India and England in the third Test at Mohali, hosts at stumps were 271 for the loss of six wickets.

Earlier, Stokes also had Vijay caught behind by Bairstow for 12. That’s something that we take as a responsibility and not as a burden.

England were 144 for five, and the wickets column had one next to each of the five bowlers that Virat Kohli had used.

The traditionally pace-friendly Mohali pitch offered appreciable lateral movement to the pacers while spinners also managed to extract a fair bit of turn.

The Saurashtra batsman also praised wicketkeeper-batsman Parthiv Patel who made a comeback to worldwide cricket after a gap of several years. Patel survived a review for caught behind during that phase.

India then went into the lunch break with 60/1 on board. Rashid then got a struggling Ajinkya Rahane for nought in his very second over of the session after trapping the batsman lbw. In all, he hit six boundaries in 85 balls.

Kohli appreciated how the ball-tracking technology improved leg-before decisions without challenging the authority of the on-field umpires. But a splendid effort by Chris Woakes at deep midwicket to remove Cheteshwar Pujara (51) sparked a batting collapse.

Pujara would register the 11th half-century of his Test career while Kohli would go on score 62 before being dismissed by Ben Stokes, with whom the Indian skipper had an altercation on Saturday.

This was after Mohammed Shami (3-63) struck twice to bring a quick end to England’s innings, who had started from 268-8 overnight.

India’s “Man Friday” was Ashwin, who again played his part albeit with the willow reaching his 9th half-century in Test cricket. India needs 12 more runs to equalise with England’s first innings total of 283.

Fellow fast bowler Umesh Yadav, star off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin and Jayant Yadav bagged two wickets each. Obviously, in the last session, we lost many wickets, which we didn’t want to but things happen.

At the start of the day, Shami, with the first ball of the second over, got Rashid (4) to nick a delivery that only moved a shade away. He remained unbeaten on 13.

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Stokes’ departure saw Jos Buttler join Bairstow in the middle and the duo proceeded to try and salvage the England innings.

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