Eng vs Ind | England claw back with three wickets before lunch on day 4

Virat Kohli missed out on a half-century after another dismissal outside off-stump even as India extended their lead to 230 runs by lunch on day four of the fourth Test against England.

At the break, India reached 329 for 6 with Rishabh Pant (16 batting) and Shardul Thakur (11 batting) at the crease.

During the session, Ajinkya Rahane (0) couldn’t justify the decision of his team management to shield him on the third evening as Chris Woakes (25-8-47-2) dismissed him with an off-cutter.

Before that he had sent back Ravindra Jadeja (17) with a leg-cutter after the left-hander put on 59 for the fourth wicket with his skipper, who was dismissed by Moeen Ali after a stylish knock comprising seven boundaries.

It was a slider from Moeen (19-0-79-1) which the Indian captain played by plonking his front-foot way down the track.

Kohli wanted to play for the off-break but as it is in the case of sliders, the ball went straight taking the outside edge into Craig Overton’s big palms in the first slip.

It was another mini middle-order collapse from 296 for 3 to 312 for 6 in a space of 10 overs.

Kohli, who came in at an overnight score of 22, looked comfortable as the copybook cover drive off James Anderson suggested.

He looked mostly in control but the same can’t be said about some of his other teammates. Jadeja was more intent leaving deliveries and let Kohli do all the scoring before Woakes got one to jag back off length and hit him on the pads.

But it was Indian’s vice-captain Rahane, who cut a sorry picture during his eight ball stay. He was adjudged out once but DRS saved him but not the second time when a Woakes’ delivery hit him below the knee roll.

Hoping against hope, Rahane asked Kohli if he could review and the captain answered in negative.

The veteran of 78 Tests with another failure is slowly making his place untenable in the playing XI.

His sequence of scores since WTC final reads — 49, 15, 5, 1, 61, 18, 10, 14, 0. A total of 173 runs in nine completed innings doesn’t augur well for the Mumbai batsman.