London: After a good batting show, all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja gave India early hope by snapping up opener Sam Robson as England took tea on 18 for one on the fourth day of the second Test, here today.
Needing another 301 runs to register a possible second-highest chase at Lord's, -- the first being 344 by West Indies against the hosts in 1984, skipper Alastair Cook (5) and Gary Ballance (1) were fighting it out in the middle.
Left-arm spinner Jadeja (1/7) trapped Robson (7) LBW on the first ball of the seventh over to give the visitors a chance of taking lead in the five-match series.
Earlier a 99-run eight-wicket partnership between Jadeja (68) and Bhuvneshwar Kumar (52) helped India post 342 in the second innings, leaving a 319-run winning target for the Three Lions.
Medium-pacers Ben Stokes and Liam Plunkett picked three wickets apiece as off-spinner Moeen Ali also bagged two wickets.
The pace with which Jadeja and Kumar scored was what hurt England the most. They added 66 runs in the first ten overs after lunch, with Jadeja reaching his first half-century in Test cricket in the 92nd over. He got there off only 42 balls, hitting 7 fours, also bringing up their 50-run partnership in doing so.
In the next over, the 300-run mark came up for India.
The duo scored at near six runs an over for much of their partnership and England had no reply as they altered their plans every over. It didn't help then that Jadeja was dropped on 66 not out by Ian Bell at midwicket off Stokes (3-51) in the 98th over.
But he had already made them pay and was out for 68 runs off 57 balls, with 9 fours, two overs later caught off the same bowler with Cook running back from first slip and completing a catch similar to the one Shikhar Dhawan took in the first innings.
The last two batsman, Mohammad Shami (0) and Ishant Sharma (0 not out), couldn't stay long enough at the crease, but they gave enough support to Kumar to complete his third fifty in this series. He got there off 65 balls, with 8 fours, in the 102nd over, and was the last man out. Plunkett (3-65), Ali (2-28), James Anderson (1-77) and Stuart Broad (1-93) were the other wicket-takers in this innings.
