Brilliant Half Centuries By Pope And Woakes, England takes Crucial 99 Runs Lead

London: England were in deep trouble losing 5 wickets for 62 runs, in reply to India’s first innings total of 191runs on day-2 of the fourth Test match at The Oval on Friday, but thanks to fine half-centuries by Ollie Pope (81, 159 balls 6 fours) and Chris Woakes (50, 60 balls 11 fours) hosts manage to take the lead of 99 runs by scoring 290 in the first innings.

Indian openers K L Rahul (22 not out) and Rohit Sharma(20 not out) batted well to go back into the dressing room with a score of 43 for no loss trail by 56 runs. The full three days have left in the Test and it will be important to see how Indian batsmen will bat in the second innings tomorrow. Everybody thought that the lead of 99 runs will be very crucial for England but Rahul and Rohit, so far, have proved that they can bat even better in the second innings. The first session will be very crucial from an Indian point of view, on Saturday

On Friday, England started with an overnight score of 53 for 3 and trail by 138  runs. Chris Woakes, playing a first-class game for the first time since August 2020 after missing 11 Tests through isolation, rotation and injury -yesterday took four wickets to shine with the ball and today he impressed everyone with his hard-hitting batting with tailenders.

Ollie Pope was instrumental in two solid partnerships, he added 89 runs off 139 balls with Jonny Bairstow for the sixth wicket and with Moeen Ali 71 runs off 123 balls for the seventh wicket. Then came Chris Woakes and Pope with him added 28 runs in 56 balls for the eighth wicket. fast bowler Shardul Thakur took the all-important wicket of Pope. He was clean bowled by Thakur.  Woakes added 35 runs off 40 balls with James Anderson (not out 1). Woakes was unlucky to get run out as the last England batsmen.

 India: first-innings all out 191 (Shardul Thakur 57, Virat Kohli 50, Chris Woakes 4-55, Ollie Robinson 3-38).

England: first-innings all out 290 (Ollie Pope 81, Chris Woakes 50,  Jonny Bairstow 37, Moeen Ali 35, Dawid Malan 31,  Joe Root 26,  Umesh Yadav 3/76, Ravindra Jadeja 2/36, Jasprit Bumrah 2/67).

India: second-innings 43 for no loss (K L Rahul not out 22, Rohit Sharma not out 20 )