India are in prime position to pull off their first Test victory in nine years after routing England for 136 then piling on the runs to finish 478 ahead, with two days left to play.
The off-spinner Deepti Sharma took only 33 balls to claim a remarkable Test five-wicket haul, sending down four maidens and conceding only seven runs in her 5.3 overs, as England collapsed from 108 for three to 136 all out.
The India captain, Harmanpreet Kaur, decided against enforcing the follow-on and England reduced India to 186 for six by the close, with the 22-year-old off spinner Charlie Dean impressing with figures of four for 68 in only her second Test. But with Kaur unbeaten overnight on 44, the hosts will feel confident that victory is a question of when, not if.
“There’s a few tired bodies and tired minds as well,” Nat Sciver-Brunt said. “Test cricket is quite difficult in that you might be out in the field and then things can change quickly. It was a day of up and down.”
England’s captain, Heather Knight, and coach, Jon Lewis, who had opted for an extra seamer over the all-round off-spinning option of Alice Capsey, looked on stony-faced as Sharma extracted maximum turn from the pitch, landing the ball well outside off stump and turning it into the right-handers to finish off the English tail.
Sciver-Brunt had earlier struck a half-century but England’s hopes of a rescue were dashed when Sneh Rana turned the ball even further than Sharma, beating the 31-year-old’s bat and rattling her off stump.
Excellent ground fielding from the Indians supported the efforts of the spinners, with Jemimah Rodrigues holding on to a catch at short leg to see off Danni Wyatt, before Shafali Verma took one at leg slip which rebounded off Smriti Mandhana’s helmet and did for an unfortunate Amy Jones.
But perhaps the most important intervention was that of Pooja Vastrakar, who scored a direct hit from midwicket to run out Ashes double-centurion Tammy Beaumont by a yard, with just 10 runs to her name.
There was also excitement for Renuka Singh, who bagged a maiden Test wicket and further strengthened her hold over a hapless-looking Sophia Dunkley, who – after being dismissed by Singh three times in as many matches in the T20 leg of the tour – was bowled playing all round Singh’s inswinger. The decision of Knight and Lewis to promote her up the order, after England’s incumbent opener Emma Lamb was forced out of contention with a back injury, looks more and more akin to throwing a lamb to the slaughter.
“It felt like a fairly long afternoon,” Sciver-Brunt admitted. “The pitch deteriorated a little bit and there was some not so brilliant footwork.
“The bowlers are making us create indecision in the way that we go about things. When wickets fall, India can create a lot of noise and a lot of chaos around that, so it’s about trying to ride that wave and that pressure as a batter.”
Moeen Ali has said that “there’s no excuse” for England’s terrible white-ball form and called on his teammates to be “smarter and braver”, after they went 2-0 down in their T20 series against West Indies with three to play. It was a fourth defeat in five games on this tour.
There is more to trips like this than results but theirs have been extremely poor, and it is increasingly hard to shrug them off. Since the start of the World Cup England have played 14 white-ball games and won only four, and there is another World Cup to defend, back in the Caribbean in six months’ time. They have the chance to return to winning ways in the third T20 at Grenada on Saturday but form is not on their side. In T20s in particular games are often decided in a few key moments, and England are not winning many of them.
“We’re not at the moment. There’s still a bit of time to go before the World Cup, we need to get a few things right and get the confidence back as a side,” Moeen said. “We have to be a little bit smarter, I guess, and a bit braver.”
Moeen said that batters and bowlers were guilty of obvious failings. “As a batter if you’re in you’ve got to get us closer, see it through a bit more,” he said. “It’s just giving your wicket away a lot of the time. You can be positive and hit the ball hard but you don’t have to always hit sixes.”
Meanwhile, Sam Curran’s inability to stop the West Indies captain, Rovman Powell, scoring 30 runs off a single over in Thursday’s second T20 illustrated, Moeen said, an issue with England’s bowling. “Just be clear, what’s your plan? What’s your plan B? I know he’s lacking a bit of confidence but still in those situations you’ve got to be real brave and have a couple of plans,” he said. “I think we’ve got to get better at that, and it’s not just him, I think it’s a couple of the guys.
“There’s still players to come back but there’s no excuse,” Moeen said. “Everyone’s a good player here. We’ve just got to adapt quickly to these conditions, and we’ve just got to start winning.” Simon Burnton
England had begun the day well by wrapping up India’s first innings with efficiency, the hosts adding only 18 runs to their overnight total for the loss of their final three wickets.
Lauren Bell hit the sweet spot in her four-over spell, and was rewarded with the wicket of Sharma, who tried to defend the swinging ball and sent an edge up to Sophie Ecclestone at first slip. Beaumont made a mess of a simple catch at silly point, but Ecclestone removed Singh with the very next ball, turning one sharply to hit her off stump, before having Rajeshwari Gayakwad caught in the next over to close off the innings.
India, though, had already acquired their highest total in women’s Tests. With the pressure on, England added to the desperateness of their situation when Knight shelled Verma at first slip on nought. It was a bad miss which allowed the Indian openers to add 50 quick runs in the opening 11 overs, and put the match even further beyond England’s reach.
