Trouble continued for India as they were struggling at 151/5 at the end of 2nd day’s play in the world test championship finals at Kennington Oval in London. After winning the toss, Indian skipper Rohit Sharma put Australia to bat where Patt Cummins led team cruised there way to a mammoth total of 469 runs, thanks to 285 runs stand between Steve Smith and Travis Head to put Australia in driver’s seat.
India started well with some solid stroke play from Rohit Sharma and in form Shubman Gill, who is fresh from a great IPL season, finishing at the top of the highest runs getter of the season and bagging the player of the tournament award. However, Patt Cummins had other idea and he found Sharma plumb infront of the wicket to send him packing. He was soon joined by Gill in the pavilion, thanks to the bowling of Scott Boland, who was the late replacement for injured Josh Hazlewood before the match.
Lot was expected from Saurashtra man Cheteshwar Pujara as he was in England, scoring heap of runs in county cricket but his defense was shackled by Cameron Green after the lunch on day 2 as India was struggling at 50/3. Ajinkya Rahane and Virat Kohli were a big ray of hope for the Indian team with loads of experience to their side but a short ball did the damage for Kohli as Starc had the last laugh against him.
Ravindra Jadeja arrived at number 6 and started counter attacking the bowlers which forced the Aussie skipper to spread the field. Jadeja and Rahane tried to steady the ship by adding 71 runs together but Nathan Lyon showed his class and send Jadeja packing just few minutes before the end of day’s play. India finished the day on 151/5 with Srikar Bharat and Ajinkya Rahane out in the center and they still need 109 runs to avoid a follow on.
Indian fans will be praying that the batters script a fightback like Laxman and Dravid scripted in the 2001 Kolkata test against the same opposition but that looks unlikely from here on. Fans on twitter started praying for the rain to intervene in the game as English weather is famous for ruining the play at many occasions but we will let you know if that will be the case in the remaining three days of this test match.
Is there a chance of rain ?
Friday 9 June 2023– There are no chances of rain with the weather remaining partly cloudy through the course of the day.
Saturday 10 June 2023- This will be a good day for batting and Australia will get benefit from it as they are likely to be batting on day four to set a mammoth 4th innings total for India. The weather is expected to go as high as 29’c and the chances of rain are negligible.
Sunday 11 June 2023– There are chances of afternoon showers on the last day but to reach this stage and hope for the rain Gods to do some miracle, Indian team has to play really well from here on.
That’s not it, if the last day is washed away from rain or also some overs are lost, the match will go to reserves day and umpires will complete the course of the overs left before they call it off.
Weather forecast on Monday 12 June 2023- Afternoon showers are expected to derail the proceedings.
