India vs England: Dhruv Jurel and Ravindra Jadeja take India to where no team has gone in 49 years
Record continue to tumble in the ongoing Anderson-Tendulkar trophy and it is mostly the batters that are having fun out there. In the final session of the third day at The Oval, India got past the 300-run mark through Ravindra Jadeja and Dhruv Jurel as the visitors extended their dominance over England in the Test match. In getting past the milestone, the duo also got India into a bit of history.
It was India's eighth total of 300-plus in the series, the joint-most in a series by any team in history. There have only been three such instances ever and the last of them came back in 1975-76. That is nearly five decades ago. Incidentally, Australia were involved in all the three prior series where the milestone was achieved.
The Aussies achieved it twice themselves, once in 1910-11 against South Africa and in 1975-76 against West Indies and were at the receiving end of it against England in 1928-29. Amongst the plethora of records broken in this series, this stat might be one of the biggest highlights, given the sheer lack of frequency of how often it was been done previously.
It continued to be a day of toil for England who were sloppy with the ball despite having reasonable help from the surface and overcast conditions. Chris Woakes's absence was always bound to be a critical factor and as the day went on, stand-in skipper Ollie Pope felt the heat with India's batters making merry. Nightwatchman Akash Deep's 66 set the tone for India's fightback while Yashasvi Jaiswal peeled off his second hundred of the series to put India in the driving seat.
There were plenty of dropped catches and England's bowlers were also immensely guilty of spraying the ball well down the leg-side and off-side, making things impossible on many occasions for keeper Jamie Smith. Statistically, they have been recorded as byes but that is harsh on Smith as he was helpless on most occasions.
As this article is being published, India's lead has touched the 300-run mark with three wickets still intact.
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