Saturday in Birmingham was festive. Heavy metal legend and hometown favourite Ozzy Osbourne performed live for one last time, and Black Sabbath, the band he founded with three others 57 years ago, reunited after 20 years.
The who’s who of rock music, from Metallica to Lamb of God to Guns N’ Roses, lined up to pay their tributes to Osbourne, widely considered the godfather of the genre.
In contrast, what was happening four miles south of Villa Park, seemed low key. There was a cricket match, the ‘gentlemen’s game’ as they call it, and if ever there was a musical analogy to be made, it would only go as far as easy jazz.
But for an hour and 14 minutes, Rishabh Pant, India’s best cricketing rock-and-roll artist, turned Edgbaston into a raucous theatre. On day four of the second Test against England, his thrill-a-minute 58-ball 65 (8×4, 3×6), replete with audacious ramps and falling sweeps, kept the capacity audience hooked.
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And along with a yet another sublime century from Shubman Gill (161, 162b, 13×4, 8×6), and Ravindra Jadeja’s 24th Test fifty (69 n.o., 118b, 5×4, 1×6), he helped India declare at 427 for six and set England a humongous target of 608, a world-record chase if it materialises.
But it might be beyond even Ben Stokes and his band of uber-aggressive men, for Akash Deep (two for 36) and Mohammed Siraj (one for 29) reduced the host to 72 for three at stumps, with Ollie Pope (24 batting, 44b, 3×4) and Harry Brook (15 batting, 15b, 2×4) at the crease.
In the morning, it felt like England had a sniff. Chris Woakes and Brydon Carse bowled probing spells to overnight men K.L. Rahul (55, 84b, 10×4) and Karun Nair (26, 46b, 5×4), and Carse was rewarded for sticking to a stump-to-stump line as Karun edged to wicketkeeper Jamie Smith a delivery that straightened after pitching.
For an hour and 14 minutes, Rishabh Pant, India’s best cricketing rock-and-roll artist, turned Edgbaston into a raucous theatre.
| Photo Credit:
Reuters
For an hour and 14 minutes, Rishabh Pant, India’s best cricketing rock-and-roll artist, turned Edgbaston into a raucous theatre.
| Photo Credit:
Reuters
Tongue bowled an even better delivery to send back Rahul, with the cherry that was delivered from slightly wide turning the batter inside-out and rearranging the stumps.
At that stage, the visitors were 126 for three, leading by 306 runs. But it would have been a winning total against anyone but this England, and Pant and Gill duly came to the rescue by putting together 110 important runs for the fourth wicket.
It helped that Pant was dropped two times. As he attempted to bash the ball as hard as he could, twice the bat even flew from his hands. His dismissal by offie Shoaib Bashir was comical as the willow landed somewhere near mid-wicket and the ball safely in deep mid-off Ben Duckett’s hands.
In Gill’s knock – his third 140-plus score in four innings – the dynamics were softer compared to Pant’s, but it didn’t lack one bit in virtuosity. Where in the first essay he buckled down and batted India to safety, he brought out his best hits more often this time.
There were the flat-bats, the whips, the half-pulls and the half-cuts. The two hooked sixes off Tongue – who received quite a bit of lashing as he conceded 93 runs from his 15 overs – were his stand-out shots.
When Pant departed, India already led by 416, only two less than West Indies’ record-fourth innings chase versus Australia in 2003. Gill and Jadeja, with a 175-run association, may have just shut England out.
