England rally after Pant heroics to set up thrilling finish to India opener
India's Rishabh Pant celebrates reaching his second century of the match in the first Test against England (Darren Staples)
Rishabh Pant became the first India batsman to score hundreds in both innings of a Test against England on Monday's fourth day at Headingley before the hosts hit back to set up a dramatic finale to the series opener.
England, with all their wickets standing, will head into Tuesday's final day needing a further 350 runs to reach a target of 371 as they bid to go 1-0 up in a five-match series.
Advertisement
India were threatening to bat England out of the game while Pant, who made 134 in the first innings, completed a 130-ball century, including 13 fours and two sixes, before falling for 118.
The swashbuckling wicketkeeper received excellent support from opener Rahul, who made 137 in a fourth-wicket partnership of 195 that started when India were faltering at 92-3 in their second innings.
But from the relative safety of 333-4, India lost their last six wickets for 31 runs as they slumped to 364 all out.
Fast bowler Josh Tongue did the bulk of the damage in a burst of three wickets in four balls.
Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett survived a potentially tricky six-over spell to take England to 21-0 at stumps.
Advertisement
- 'Blockbuster finish' -
"It's a blockbuster finish waiting tomorrow (Tuesday)," Rahul told Sky Sports after stumps.
He added: "Someone's got to win tomorrow, it'll be an interesting day. The wicket is not as easy as the first innings, they (England) won't find it as easy to hit the ball on the rise.
"Even if they get a big partnership, if we get a couple of wickets we'll be right in the game."
Tongue, meanwhile was proud of England's resilience, saying: "It's very exciting. To get them all out at the end of the day and to not lose a wicket was crucial."
Advertisement
Tongue, who finished with innings figures of 3-72 in 18 overs, added: "I do enjoy bowling at the tail, it's a good opportunity to get wickets."
India also collapsed in the first innings. Despite hundreds from captain Shubman Gill, Pant and Yashasvi Jaiswal, they were dismissed for 471 after losing their last seven wickets for 41 runs.
The outstanding Jasprit Bumrah, the world's top-ranked Test bowler, took five wickets in England's first-innings 465 and will be the danger man for India on Tuesday.
England, however, have succeeded in pulling off some dramatic run-chases in their 'Bazball' era under coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes
Advertisement
They reached a target of 378 -- their record successful fourth-innings chase in Test cricket -- against a Bumrah-led India attack at Edgbaston three years ago.
Pant is just the second wicketkeeper in Test history to score hundreds in both innings of the same match following Andy Flower's scores of 142 and 199 not out for Zimbabwe against South Africa in 2001.
After a morning session in which India skipper Gill was the only batsman dismissed, Rahul and Pant upped the tempo in their contrasting styles.
Pant completed an 83-ball fifty before driving Shoaib Bashir for two soaring sixes in three balls.
Advertisement
Rahul took 202 balls to reach his century, featuring 13 fours, with a trademark cover-drive -- his ninth hundred in 59 Tests.
Pant, severely injured in a life-threatening car crash in December 2022, was stuck in the 90s before a quick single took him to his century.
Rahul eventually played on to Brydon Carse before Tongue dismissed Shardul Thakur and Mohammed Siraj with successive deliveries.
Bumrah survived the hat-trick but was bowled next ball by Tongue with Prasidh Krishna out for a duck as well when he holed out off Bashir to end the innings.
jdg/kca/nf
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Where does the word ‘soccer' come from?
The word 'soccer' remains at the heart of one of the most enduring, if comparatively low-key and petty fronts of the culture war. At its most basic level, it's a transatlantic disagreement over language, but there seems to be more to it than that. The most basic and probably most sensible point of view is that it's simply one country — America, though there are others — using a word to differentiate one extremely popular sport from a slightly less popular sport. Advertisement But use the word in the wrong context — which is to say, 'in England' — and you can expect paroxysms of disgust from people who seem to think it represents something much deeper. These people are, admittedly, those who are far too easily outraged (check their sent email files and there's a reasonable chance they have also complained to a TV station about a newsreader not wearing a tie), but it seems like these people think of this as somehow chipping away at the identity of the game, and even themselves. It's an Americanism, as everyone knows, and this is apparently something to be suspicious of. If you look on Etsy (surely the great battleground for any sporting culture war), you can find merchandise on either side: in one corner, a T-shirt with the slogan, 'It's football, not soccer', in the other a hoodie proclaiming, 'It's called soccer', complete with suitably patriotic Star-Spangled Banner. It's a curious thing. As Stefan Szymanski and Silke-Maria Weineck wrote in their book It's Football, Not Soccer (And Vice Versa), 'In general, transatlantic relations have remained peaceful when it comes to sweaters and jumpers, trucks and lorries, boots and trunks, or pants and trousers. Americans get to marvel at the quaintness of the English, the English get to take joy at the Americans' failure to master basic vocabulary. Everybody is happy. Except when it comes to soccer. Why does this word generate such vitriol?' The quick answer is that some people will get outraged about anything. Perhaps more interesting is to look into the story of how the word 'soccer' came into being, which is a bit more detailed than you might think. You probably already know the basics. These days, it is viewed as an Americanism (and also used in Australia, Canada and a few other countries whose own version of football dominates the collective consciousness) but the word soccer came from England at some point in the 1800s. Then, there were two types of football: rugby football and association football, and 'soccer' comes from a contraction of the latter, to differentiate it from the former. Advertisement But where did that contraction originate? It's hard to say exactly how the word came into being, but the most common origin tale comes, as with many things in England in the 1800s, from private schools. The story goes that a student and amateur footballer called Charles Wreford-Brown (who would go on to be a relatively senior figure at the Football Association) was having breakfast at Oriel College, part of Oxford University. The English have a habit of essentially giving nicknames to nouns by adding 'er' onto the end, or by contracting the word and then adding the 'er', with the colloquial word for a five-pound note ('fiver') acting as a good example. So, as Geoffrey Green, the great former football/soccer correspondent for the Times, the London-based newspaper, wrote in his book Soccer: The World Game: 'He was approached by a friend: 'Wreford, come and have a game of 'rugger' after 'brekker'?'. 'No, thank you, John. I'm going to play 'soccer'.' In that fleeting moment, a new word came into being. Little could Wreford-Brown, who was to grace the game for so long afterwards, have realised how the word would finally ring around the world.' It's not clear exactly when this was, but Wreford-Brown was born in 1866, so would have attended university at some point in the mid/late 1880s. Of course, much like many of these neat stories where something has a definitive beginning, there's every chance it's apocryphal: arguably, it's more likely that the word started being used in those circles at around that time, and that the Wreford-Brown story is just a neat peg to hook it on. Indeed, it seems to have been mentioned in print for the first time in 1885, in an edition of The Oldhallian, which was a periodical for Oxford alumni. An unsigned letter to the Oldhallian said: 'The Varsity played Aston Villa and were beaten after a very exciting game; this was pre-eminently the most important 'socker' game played in Oxford this term…' Advertisement It took a little longer to enter more mainstream discourse. The first mention of it in the Manchester Guardian newspaper (now the Guardian) came in 1905, while its first appearance in the Times came in 1907, presciently enough in a letter to the editor about hooliganism. Football gradually became the more prevalent word for the game in England as its popularity grew and became the sport of the working class, but soccer was still routinely used, most often by more highbrow newspaper columnists to differentiate it from rugby, until the 1980s. One of the most popular football entertainment shows in the country was called Soccer AM. Anyone who pretends that soccer is purely an Americanism and football always has been the term used in England is simply incorrect. But of course, despite this, the word soccer is the one that has always been used in America, right? 'Football' is the one with the oval-shaped ball and the helmets, and always has been. Well, sort of. The first mention of soccer in the pages of the New York Times came on October 22, 1905, in a report of a game involving a team known as the Pilgrims, who had come over from England to promote the game in America. 'English socker (sic) team won football match,' read the slightly confusing headline (above), followed by an account of the game at the Polo Grounds in New York that ended 7-1 to the English touring team, declaring it to be a 'clean, well-played contest, bristling with clever passing, intricate dribbling, capital dodging and exceptionally hard kicking'. Capital dodging! Exceptionally hard kicking! Sounds like a jolly old show. You have probably noticed the incorrect spelling in the headline — that may have been the work of some wisecracking members of that Pilgrims team, who told people present at the game that the term came from the thick woollen socks that the players wore. But New York Times reader Frances H Tabor picked up on the snafu, writing a letter to the paper that was published a few weeks later, upbraiding them for their mistaken use of the word. 'In the first place,' wrote Mr Tabor, 'there is no such word, and in the second place, it is an exceedingly ugly and undignified one.' Advertisement But the letter is instructive beyond the ramblings of a haughty pedant, because Mr Tabor (below) goes on to repeat the popular story about where the word came from, writing that it was 'a fad at Oxford and Cambridge to use 'er' at the end of many words, such as foot-er, sport-er and as association did not take an 'er' easily, it was, and is, sometimes spoken of as soccer'. This indicates that the Wreford-Brown origin story is relatively solid. The word seemed to be taking hold by the following year, particularly when English team Corinthians arrived in New York for a tour of exhibition games. And who should be with them, in the touring party as a player but listed as the referee in one fixture that they won 18-0, but our old friend Charles Wreford-Brown? Alas, history doesn't record how he reacted to the word he coined a few years earlier being used halfway around the world. The natural assumption would be that 'soccer' became the automatic term for the sport in America fairly quickly, but that isn't quite the case. The name of the sport's governing body was called, until the 1940s, the United States Football Association. And even when it was changed, 'football' remained. The Harrisburg Telegraph, a newspaper published in Pennsylvania, reported in July 1944 that: 'United States Soccer Football Association is the new name of the organisation having supervision of the booting game, and conducting annual amateur and professional tournaments throughout the country.' In fact, 'football' wasn't entirely dropped from the organisation's title until 1974, when it became the United States Soccer Federation, the name it is known as today. There doesn't seem to be any more complicated reason for this than a sort of institutional dithering — or, as Andrei Markovits and Steven Hellerman put it in their book Offside: Soccer and American Exceptionalism, it represented their struggles to 'find a distinct identity for soccer that was American, yet also apart from the behemoth of American football'. These days, the distinction is a little clearer. The word that Wreford-Brown (or at least some of his peers) coined is still used by those who love the game around the world, and irritates those of a slightly pedantic disposition. Surely, we can all just settle on that.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
LOAN WATCH: Johnson's great start at Halifax plus Russell and Whitehead debuts
Alfie Johnson has scored three tries in as many games on loan with Championship side Halifax Panthers (Image: Olly Hassell/ SAM Stone made his Warrington Wolves debut on Saturday – and the two players who went on loan to Salford Red Devils as part of the deal to bring him in did similar the following day. Forwards Dan Russell and Tom Whitehead have joined Paul Rowley's side – the former for the remainder of the season, the latter for a month – and were both a part of the side beaten 38-6 by Hull FC on Sunday. Advertisement Papua New Guinea international Russell started in the back row and carried the ball 10 times for 35 metres while in defence, he completed 19 tackles with five misses. Whitehead came off the bench to complete 20 tackles with four misses, while he also made 20 metres from four carries of the ball. Another Warrington player currently out on loan in Super League is Dan Okoro, with the prop in the midst of a season-long spell at Castleford Tigers. He was the Tigers' 18th man during their defeat to Hull KR on Thursday night and in total, he has played eight times for Danny McGuire's side with the last of those appearances coming against his parent club at the end of last month. Advertisement One player making a success of his time out on loan is outside-back Alfie Johnson, who joined Championship side Halifax Panthers on a season-long deal last month. Since then, he has made a fine start to life with Kyle Eastmond's side, scoring three tries in as many appearances. Johnson made a try-scoring debut on the wing for the Panthers during a defeat to Oldham but having moved into the centres for their trip to Widnes Vikings last week, he shone by touching down twice in a 24-24 draw. He started at centre again this weekend but was withdrawn through injury during the second half as Halifax lost 32-16 at Featherstone Rovers. Johnson has been joined at The Shay of late by back-rower Nolan Tupaea, who has come off the bench in the Widnes and Featherstone games having joined the club on a season's loan.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
James Wood's RBI single
Field of Gold secures St. James's Palace Stakes Field of Gold pulls ahead in the final stretch to earn a thrilling victory in the Group 1 St. James's Palace Stakes at the 2025 Royal Ascot. 4:07 Now Playing Paused Ad Playing
