India vs England: Fifth Test Day 2 Recap and Twitter Reactions
After an extremely promising first day, in which they had England on the back-foot at a score of 198 for 7, the Indian team let themselves down on the second day. From the get-go, Buttler showed his quality and put India on the backfoot. After that, India found it extremely difficult to break through England's lower order resistance, and when it was finally their turn to bat, the quality of Anderson, Broad, and the England bowling attack was really on show.
The day started off with Buttler and Rashid steadily building up their partnership only for Bumrah to break it and for India to think they were back on top. However, Jos Buttler went on a counterattacking onslaught on his way to 89, and was ably supported by an innings of 38 by Stuart Broad as they went on to have a 98-run 9th wicket partnership. Finally, India managed to bowl England out for 332 and begin their innings.
Barely had the innings begun when Shikhar Dhawan got out. Rahul and Pujara did well to re-build and put on a 64-run stand, but Sam Curran removed Rahul and Anderson came back into the attack to get the scalps of Pujara and Rahane. Vihari, the debutant, was able to put on a half century stand with India's captain Virat Kohli; however, late in the day, Stokes forced Kohli to edge one outside off and Pant could only survive for 8 balls before he, too, was sent back to the pavillion. At the close of play on day 2, India find themselves trailing by 158 runs with 4 wickets in hand, and they need a good performance to bring them back into the game.
This is what experts and fans had to say on Twitter:
