Jadeja triggers England wobble

Ravindra Jadeja ripped out England`s top three before taking a stunning catch in the outfield to give India a sniff of a 4-0 series win on the final day of the Chennai Test. On a fifth-day pitch that was still good to bat on, England contributed to their own second-session slump, losing four wickets in the space of 12.4 overs, none of them to a genuinely wicket-taking ball, after Alastair Cook and Keaton Jennings had added 103 for the first wicket. At tea, England were four down and 115 short of making India bat again, with Moeen Ali and Ben Stokes not entirely secure but as yet undefeated.

Moeen had a couple of edgy moments when Umesh Yadav and Ishant Sharma bounced him, sending the ball looping towards fielders on the leg-side boundary without quite carrying to them. Stokes, meanwhile, survived a searching period against R Ashwin, who has dismissed him five times in the series. They will both have to come out again and do a little more surviving, for one last time this series.

Both sides of lunch, Jadeja had threatened to dismiss Cook for the sixth time in the series. He produced a loud lbw shout with his first ball of the day, turning the ball past the inside edge when Cook, on 25, pressed forward to defend. India did well not to review umpire Marais Erasmus` not-out decision: replays suggested the ball struck Cook in line with off stump but would probably have spun past leg stump. Then, on 47, Cook shuffled across his stumps and missed a flick; this time India reviewed, and ball-tracking suggested the ball was turning too much to hit leg stump.

Eventually, Cook`s shuffling unease about getting lbw, caused him to play at a ball fired a long way down the leg side, and he effectively glanced the ball straight to leg slip. Cook fell one short of a half-century in his final innings of this long and difficult tour of the subcontinent, and what might possibly be his final innings as England`s captain.

It was a typical innings in cussedness if not so much in length, taking no risks and forcing India to bowl their best balls at him even as he struggled against both Jadeja and Ashwin, who had beaten his outside edge frequently in the first hour. There was a dropped catch too, Ashwin finding dip and turn in the third over of the day to find his outside edge, but not the desired support behind the wicket, the ball bouncing off Parthiv Patel`s gloves.

Jennings had played the spinners well, sweeping and reverse-sweeping confidently and also using his feet to try and get to the pitch and work Jadeja and Amit Mishra with the turn. This enabled him to clip both of them for fours through midwicket, but having done this to go from 50 to 54, he stepped out again, premeditatedly, and Jadeja fired it in low and full. The ball hit Jennings on the front foot, and then bounced up into the face of his bat, and looped back for a simple return catch.

Joe Root, England`s best batsman of the series, got himself out six overs later, sweeping unwisely off the line of the stumps. The ball was too full for the shot, and it sneaked under his bat and hit his front pad instead. India reviewed Simon Fry`s not-out decision - a fair call, given it wasn`t immediately apparent whether the ball had straightened enough to hit the stumps - and ball-tracking said it was hitting more than 50% of leg stump.

Jonny Bairstow was next to go, perhaps unfortunate to see a perfectly acceptable flick, off a full, leg-stumpish Ishant delivery balloon into the air, the ball perhaps stopping on him. He was even more unfortunate that Jadeja was the fielder sprinting from midwicket towards the square leg boundary with his back to the pitch, looking over his shoulder to keep his eye on the ball. Perhaps no other man on the field would have been able to pull off the catch.

Source: ESPNcricinfo