Lucky Jaiswal, plucky Akash put India on top against England

London: Fortune favours the brave and India’s Yashasvi Jaiswal rode his luck to rake in the runs, leaving benevolent England staring at a potential loss in the fifth and final Test here on Saturday.

Dropped an astounding four times, Jaiswal made England pay dearly for those blunders — the hosts went on to grass two more as well — by cracking a counter-attacking 118 off 164 balls to power India to a competitive 304/6 at tea on a fascinating third day at The Oval. With a lead of 281 and the track at this historic ground still offering help for the fast bowlers, the Indians will be hoping their pacers rise up to the occasion for one last time as they look to level the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy 2-2.

For the first time in three days, conditions here didn’t look heavily skewed in favour of the bowlers. The pitch wore a slightly more brownish appearance after two days of intense activity and the sun also made its way in the morning. However, there was still enough juice in it for the pacers to land the punches. That’s where England erred and India’s Yashasvi Jaiswal and nightwatchman Akash Deep made the utmost use of it with the latter hammering a career-best 66 off 94 balls.

Missing lead pacer Chris Woakes, who injured his left shoulder while fielding on the opening day, the trio of Gus Atkinson, Josh Tongue and Jamie Overton faltered in their lines and lengths and Jaiswal and Akash cashed in on it to give India the confidence of gaining the ascendancy on the Moving Day. The pacers started off bowling a bit too full in the hope of getting the ball to swing and do its own dangerous thing. Nothing wrong with that because that’s what yielded a bucketload of wickets on the opening two days. But the problem was they were too full and barring the odd dangerous ball, the rest were quite ordinary.

Jaiswal, who loves batting against England and went on to score his sixth ton against them, feasted on the average bowling. Akash, on his day, can be a dangerous batter and he too sunk his teeth into the feast to collectively frustrate England. With every four that came off his blade, the cheer rose from the vast number of Indians in the sold-out arena and England started to get desperate.

England then went the other extreme, employing the short-ball strategy but ended up playing into the hands of Jaiswal and Akash who cut, pulled and hooked with disdain. Some of Akash’s front-foot pulls even delighted the great Ricky Ponting who was doing commentary for the host broadcaster. At that stage both Jaiswal and Akash looked like taking the game away from England when Overton gave the hosts an opening with the wicket of the latter. Akash trudged back disappointed but the fist-pumps he gave in the dressing room showed how happy he was at having done his job exceptionally well, the partnership of 107 swinging the tide India’s way.

This series, every time the momentum has swung one way, the pendulum hits an end and swings back the other way. That’s what happened with England dismissing Shubman Gill the first ball after lunch and stifling the scoring to make life difficult for Karun Nair and annoy the free-scoring Jaiswal. It was tense but Jaiswal managed to get to the coveted century before Nair and his dismissal brought England back into the game. It was perfectly in the balance and England, despite their abject effort on the field, had a chance to hurt India.

However, Ravindra Jadeja, who has been batting like a dream in this series, and Dhruv Jurel held firm with an unbroken 27-run partnership for the seventh wicket to anchor India to safety. A lot will depend on the duo now in the final session.