Team India finished Day 3 of the third Test against touring England at Rajkot at 196 runs for the loss of 2 wickets in the second innings on Saturday as the hosts extended their lead to 322 runs.
India picked up eight English wickets on the day to bundle the visitors out for 319 runs as pacer Mohammed Siraj played wrecker-in-chief with his four-wicket haul.
Siraj picked up the wicket of Ollie Pope before stumps of the previous day and topped it off with three wickets on Saturday as he dismissed Ben Foakes, Rehan Ahmed and James Anderson to add to his wicket-tally.
Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, who scaled the 500-wicket mark in his Test career on Friday, withdrew from the remainder of the ongoing game due to a family emergency and the hosts were reduced to playing four bowling options.
“We had only four bowlers and we had a responsibility”, Siraj said.
“We knew they would attack so we spoke about sticking together knowing that they would make a mistake. We didn’t plan anything much, we were waiting for them to make a mistake,” the pacer elaborated.
Siraj who cleaned out the stumps of three of his four victims opined that he believed that the yorker would come in handy when looking for wickets.
“I knew the yorker would be a good wicket-taking option,” the 29-year-old seamer from Hyderabad said.
“The important role for a bowler is to bowl six dot balls, we know they’re not used to playing out six dots in a row,” he clarified.
Siraj, who was rested for the second Test at Vizag shared that he enjoyed his downtime at home with his family before returning to training ahead of the Rajkot Test.
“Enjoyed with my family, then we had training. I did my training and then I even watched the Test match at home, enjoyed watching Bumrah bowling yorkers,” he concluded.
Team India opener Yashasvi Jaiswal stood out on Day 3 of the third Test as he brought up his ton in splendid fashion before retiring hurt due to what looked like a spasm in his lower back.
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