Pujara Misses Century, England Beat India By An Innings And 76 Runs

Headingley, Leeds: The speculation among the cricket lovers is over, on Saturday, neither Cheteshwar Pujara was able to complete his century nor the Indian team could avoid an innings defeat in the third Test match. Englan won by an innings and 76 runs and levelled the series 1-1. India entered this Test match with a 1-0 lead in the five-match series. England had scored 432 runs in their first innings and India scored 78 in the first innings and 278 in their second innings.

 India, started the fourth day with an overnight score of 215 runs for the loss of 2 wickets, trailing by 139 runs. England captain took the second new ball and fast bowlers, James Anderson, Ollie Robinson and Craig Overton didn't allow any batsmen to settle down and bundled out the Indian team before lunch. India lost 8 wickets adding 63 runs in just 19.3 overs. Robinson was the most successful bowler with a five-wicket haul.

Yesterday, Cheteshwar Pujara was in great form, had produced some fine strokes, in his innings of 91 runs in 180 balls with 15 fours. But today he got out without adding any run in his overnight score. He offered no stroke to an incoming ball of fast bowler Robinson and was given lbw after a replay showed the ball was hitting the stumps.

Pujara didn't score a century since January 2019. He has become the only Indian batsman who after scoring 90 runs got out without adding any run to his overnight score. Pujara and captain Virat Kohli (45 runs in 94 balls, 6 fours) have added 99 runs for the unbroken third-wicket partnership on Friday. Today this partnership ended on the same score. Kohli managed to score 55 runs in 125 balls with 8 fours. Ravindra Jadeja opened his bat to reach 30 runs in 25 balls with 5 fours.

 Pujara, who played at Headingley for Yorkshire, has scored 18 hundred in his previous 88 Tests. But he has not reached three figures at this level since a superb 193 against Australia at Sydney in January 2019. On Friday Pujara was involved in two partnerships first with Rohit Sharma for the second wicket of 82 runs and after that 99 runs unbroken partnership with Kohli for the third wicket.

Brief Score: India first innings: All out 78 in 40.4 overs ( Rohit Sharma 19, Ajinkya Rahane 18, James Anderson 3/6, Craig Overton3/14, Ollie Robinson 2/16, Sam Curran2/27).

 England first innings: All out  432 (  Joe Root 121, David Malan 70, Haseeb Hameed 68, Rory Burns 61, Mohammed Shami 4/95. Jasprit Bumrah 2/59, Mohammed Siraj 2/86, Ravindra Jadeja 2/88 ).

India Second innings: All out 278  in 99.3 overs ( Cheteshwar Pujara 91, Virat Kohli 55, Rohit Sharma 59, Ravindra Jadeja 30,  Rahane 10, K L Rahul 8, Ollie Robinson5/65, Craig Overton 3/47, Anderson 1/63, Moeen Ali 1/40 ).