Nottingham: India's middle-order crumbled in the face of some fiery bowling by England pacers, led by Stuart Broad, but the first cricket Test was still heading for a draw, here today.
Stuart Broad removed both overnight batsmen Virat Kohli (8) and Ajinkya Rahane (24) in successive overs to sent shock waves in the visiting camp but Ravindra Jadeja (18) played an uncharacteristic patient knock to lead India to 230 for six at lunch on the final day.
Jadeja, who saw his skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni's stump shattered by a Liam Plunkett delivery, took 38 balls to open his account and was still rock solid, having faced 76 balls.
Debutant Stuart Binny gave a good account of himself by playing positive cricket as he supported Jadeja from the other end. He was batting on 26 from 42 balls. The duo has added 46 runs in the unfinished seventh-wicket stand from 13.5 overs.
India now have a 191-run lead in hand and with just two session remaining in the match, a draw is the most likely outcome.
For England, Broad (2/41) was the strike bowler in the morning, while Liam Plunkett (2/68) also added to his tally.
Due to overnight and morning showers, play was delayed by 15 minutes as the hosts pushed for a win. In the very second over of the day, Broad got one to jag back in and trapped Kohli. He had Rahane caught behind in his next over, nearly destroying India's hopes of seeking a draw. The onus then lay on Dhoni to salvage the session for his team and he didn't make the brightest of starts.
Broad was unlucky not to have accounted for Dhoni when in the 56th over of the innings, Alastair Cook spilled a chance off him in the slips. Dhoni was on five at that point but could not capitalise as he was bowled for 11 runs by Plunkett in the 62nd over.
Jadeja-Binny came together at that juncture and managed to see off the rest of the session. Even so it wasn't easy as Jadeja found it hard to put bat to ball and took 38 balls to score his first run, a boundary off Anderson.
Binny looked more solid and in a way his little stay at the wicket was his best contribution in the match so far.
