Captain tried everything but could not stop Rishabh Pant and KL Rahul driving India into control of the Test
The trouble with captaining by magic is that sooner or later there’s going to be a moment when you reach into your hat and instead of pulling out a rabbit you come up with a fistful of silk lining. We’ve become so used to seeing Ben Stokes conjure up something extraordinary when a Test match is on the line, whether it’s a blizzard of sixes, a tumble of wickets, a spectacularly acrobatic catch, an intuitive decision to put an unorthodox fielder in just the right position, it was a surprise to watch him scrabbling around trying to make a breakthrough as India batted on, and on, and on, through Monday afternoon.
England looked well in this game when Rishabh Pant walked to the crease, and looked well out of it when he left again, four hours and 118 runs later, on the far side of a 195-run partnership with KL Rahul.
Stokes tried. He set an odd field after lunch, when Pant was on 31, and India were crawling along at three runs an over. It didn’t have a slip, which, as Stokes goes, felt so very defensive that everyone assumed it must be a cunning ruse. They were disabused when Pant immediately edged the ball and Stokes moved Joe Root back there after all, too late to do anything about it. Soon after, Stokes launched himself into a headlong dive to try to catch a drive Pant walloped through extra cover, but it was travelling so fast that the ball ricocheted off his fingertips.
