India opener KL Rahul
India opener KL Rahul on Saturday faced an unruly crowd at the Lord's in the second match of the five-Test series. As hosts England and India continue to cross swords at the home of cricket, some fans threw champagne bottle corks at Rahul during the first session of Day 3.
Rahul, who notched up a magnificent 129 in the first innings, was fielding at the boundary in the 69th over when the incident took place. The Karnataka batsman had also scored 84 in the first innings of the first Test at Trent Bridge last week.
TV visuals also showed champagne corks inside the playing field and the gesture of English fans irked skipper Virat Kohli, who was standing at the slips. Kohli, in fact, asked Rahul to throw them back to the crowd.
According to reports coming in from Lord's, the Indian players have complained to the umpires about the crowd's behaviour. The BCCI, however, is yet to confirm the incident.
England reached 216/3 at lunch in reply to India's first innings 364, trailing by 148 runs. Joe Root (89*) and Jonny Bairstow (51 not out) negated the visitors' bowling attack as England dominated the first session of the day.
Resuming on 119/3, England added 97 to their score without losing a wicket. Captain Root scored his 51st half-century off 82 balls. Bairstow also reached his 28th half-century in Test cricket.
The duo added 108 runs for the third wicket as Kohli's pace force failed to make a single breakthrough. Barring Jasprit Bumrah, who registered figures of 0/34 in 15 overs, none of the Indian pacers looked like troubling the Root-Bairstow pair.
Shami and Siraj during the first half an hour went for at least six boundaries and Ravindra Jadeja was also ineffective in his few overs.
