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          England vs India, 4th Test, The Oval, 5th day - Live Report

          • Matt Roller
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              Matt Roller is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. He tweets at @mroller98
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          Sep 6, 2021, 03:46 PM

          It's all square at The Oval and the game is in the balance heading into the final day. Who's going to take a series lead? Can India's Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja bowl England out? Will Joe Root see his side home? Follow it all on our live blog. For ball-by-ball commentary, click here. For our coverage in Hindi, click here.

          India 191 (Thakur 57, Kohli 50, Woakes 4-55) and 466 (Rohit 127, Pujara 61, Thakur 60, Pant 50) beat England 290 (Pope 81, Woakes 50) and 210 (Hameed 63, Burns 50) by 157 runs

          Jasprit Bumrah's devastating reverse-swing, Ravindra Jadeja's miserly spell into the rough and crucial breakthroughs from Umesh Yadav and Shardul Thakur took India into a 2-1 series lead against England, pulling off a 157-run win that had seemed improbable for much of the fourth Test at The Oval.

          India were 127 for 7 on the first afternoon, conceded a 99-run first-innings lead, and watched England's openers pile up an unbroken 100-run partnership on the final morning on a flat pitch offering almost nothing for their bowlers. But fine individual performances from Thakur and Rohit Sharma forced them back into the game before their attack split six wickets in 22.4 dramatic overs on the final afternoon, led by Bumrah's remarkable spell with the old ball.

          India's task on the final day - take 10 wickets in 90 overs - was plain but hardly straightforward. They had opted to leave out their best spinner, R Ashwin, and the pitch had offered nothing for England's seamers in the second innings. But they succeeded where England had failed, rotating their attack with great effect, using Jadeja to rough up the old ball, and giving their seamers the opportunity to rip through the middle order with reverse-swing. Bumrah's high-class spell after lunch - 2 for 6 in six overs - was particularly crucial as he spearheaded a collapse of four wickets for six runs, and Umesh finished things off with the final two wickets after tea.

          Full report.

          4.25pm: One away...

          Overton plays a back-of-a-length ball from Umesh onto his own stumps via the elbow and looks in serious pain. India are a wicket away...

          3.50pm: Bumrah's brilliance

          An hour before the game started today, Bumrah was just rolling his arm over in the side nets without taking a run-up, writes the eagle-eyed Nagraj Gollapudi from The Oval. It is a routine drill he does every morning when India are bowling. It allows him to get his lengths right.

          On a flat pitch, pitching on the right length becomes that much more important. So Vikram Rathour, doubling up as the head coach in the absence of Ravi Shastri and Bharat Arun, used his feet to measure the length and short-of-length areas outside the right-hander's off stump and placed two flat discs for Bumrah and the fast bowlers to hit at. You would expect Bumrah to unerringly hit the right spot ball after ball. Instead he kept pitching yorker-length, right at the base of the stump.

          Lo and behold, it was the yorker that Bumrah used incisively to leave Bairstow gaping, Root circumspect and rest of us treasuring the stunning spell of fast bowling this afternoon we will talk about for a long time.

          3.40pm: Tea - India need two wickets

          Another bowling change works to perfection. Bumrah thought he had trapped Craig Overton lbw, but he was saved by a review which showed the ball was missing leg stump, and has already had him dropped by Rahane in the slip cordon. Overton survives until the evening session but Umesh Yadav gets the key wicket of Woakes, caught by one of the two fielders catching at short midwicket.

          England have lost 6 for 62 in 25.1 overs during the afternoon session and India are closing in on a famous win.

          3.20pm: Thakur breaks through

          Shardul Thakur returns to bowl the 81st over but India opt against taking the new ball, perhaps just to get him loose with the old one. His first delivery looks fairly innocuous, back-of-a-length and outside off stump, but Root has a flirt and manages to inside-edge onto his own stumps, shaping to steer the ball down to third man. England's captain and in-form batter falls before tea and any semblance of hope that they had goes with him.

          3.05pm: Second new ball looms

          Woakes has put on 28 in 10 overs with Root. The old ball is still doing a bit, but seemingly not quite as much as it was, and India are biding their time until the new ball is due. Jadeja will presumably take it, most likely alongside Bumrah, and both will enjoy bowling with a harder ball. For England, their only hope is for this pair to survive until tea.

          2.35pm: Game, set, match?

          Bumrah's spell is finished but it could well have defined the day. Some balls were as close as it comes to unplayable in Test cricket: reverse-swinging, 90mph/145kph yorkers. For all of England's issues with the bat, there are very few players in the world good enough to keep those out.

          2.20pm: India close in

          This match is accelerating towards its conclusion. England started this session two wickets down with a set batter in Haseeb Hameed at the crease and their in-form batter alongside him in Joe Root. 40 minutes later, they are six down.

          This is a very soft dismissal: Moeen falls to Jadeja for the second time in the match, prodding forwards with hard hands out in front of his body. It's a straightforward chance for Suryakumar Yadav, one of the sub fielders, at short leg and India are closing in on a famous comeback win.

          2.15pm: And now 101!

          Textbook Bumrah: a fast, inswinging yorker which bursts through Bairstow and crashes into the base of the stumps. The ball is reversing in this session and according to a graphic on Sky, it's swinging twice as much on average as it did in the morning session. India are rampant and have managed to do what England couldn't in their second innings: get the old ball moving. Of course, Jadeja's role has been crucial in that - scuffing up one side of the ball by landing it in the rough.

          2.05pm: 100 for Bumrah

          India lost wickets in clusters throughout their second innings and now England have lost two in the space of 15 minutes after lunch on the final day. Jasprit Bumrah has been bowling at good pace throughout his spell and finding just a hint of reverse swing, and bursts through Ollie Pope's defences. Not a great shot, beaten on the inside edge as he plays down the wrong line, but Bumrah does not mind.

          He becomes the fastest Indian seamer to reach the landmark of 100 Test wickets in his 24th Test - Kapil Dev previously led the way, reaching it in his 25th. Bumrah's milestone gets a loud cheer from the Indian supporters in the crowd when it flashes up on the big screen, and Kohli is getting the crowd involved again, leading a slow hand-clap as Bumrah runs in for the final ball of his over, which Bairstow defends.

          1.50pm: Jadeja strikes

          Huge moment. Hameed struggled to score all morning, adding 19 runs to his overnight score in 102 balls, and presses forward looking to nudge a ball from Jadeja away into the covers. But the ball turns sharply, beating the outside edge as he plays with an open face, and kisses the top of off stump. That's a massive breakthrough for India early in the afternoon session: they need seven more wickets in 62.4 overs and the crowd are singing Jadeja's name.

          Moments before, Root had brought out another reverse-sweep - actually switching his stance over to become a de facto left-hander - in a further attempt to force him into doing something different. But with Pope - who struggled against spin during the winter, albeit in much harder conditions - new to the crease, he will surely continue to wheel away.

          1.45pm: Root's statement of intent

          Ravindra Jadeja begins the afternoon session with a juicy full toss which Root opts to reverse-sweep away for four. It's England's first boundary in 116 balls and feels significant: Root is trying to say to Kohli and Jadeja that they're going to have to come up with something better than simply firing it into the rough outside his leg stump and hoping for some grip. Bumrah will start the session from the Pavilion End after lunch, with a wide slip and a gully to Haseeb Hameed.

          1.20pm: Captain Kohli

          Virat Kohli is the captain of India so he's expected to score runs, have inputs in selection, make changes on the field, strategise, chalk out tactics, Osman Samiuddin writes from The Oval. But on days like this, with the sun beating down on you from above, the pitch (or its flatness) beating on you from below, Virat Kohli is a mood.

          India had been bowling well all morning, really well considering the lack of help in the surface but closer to lunch, soon after Dawid Malan's run-out, the mood just upped a little. There's a great atmosphere in any case, a fifth-day full house and the promise of sunshine throughout, but did it need just a little more? Kohli thought so. And so, standing at slip, he started getting the Indian supporters involved. He does it often anyway and again here he started asking the crowd to get louder, to create that atmosphere as Mohammed Siraj and Umesh Yadav closed out the session.

          And suddenly, it felt like India were bowling even better. As he got the crowd involved, Siraj bowled probably the best over of the session, finding some little bit of inward movement in a couple of overs to Joe Root. Most likely it wasn't that much more than than had been seen all morning but because of the crowd, it did feel that little bit more, like something was happening out on the surface.

          Maybe without Ravi Shastri around, and in the absences of the injured Rohit Sharma and Cheteshwar Pujara from the field, Kohli felt he needed to create something a bit more confrontational out on the pitch. Most likely it's just Kohli being Kohli. Expect more of that mood post-lunch.

          1pm: England 131 for 2 at Lunch

          Just the 54 runs in 27 overs in the morning session. Haseeb Hameed has gritted it out but has only added 19 runs to his overnight score and it looks increasingly unlikely that England are going to be able to score quickly enough to have a chance of winning - though Joe Root may have something to say about that this afternoon. India have bowled very well, Jadeja finding his rhythm and the seamers managing to extract some reverse-swing.

          12.40pm: Pressure tells

          England's batters were getting frustrated at their inability to tick things over and this is the result. A mix-up from Hameed and Malan, and Mayank Agarwal - the sub fielder - threw cleanly at the keeper's end, leaving Pant to whip the bails off in the nick of time. No real hesitation from either batter, but a poor call from Hameed and not a great dive from Malan. He is seething as he walks off, and Joe Root strides out at No. 4.

          12.35pm: Draw looming?

          England's batters are stuck at the wrong ends and struggling to rotate the strike. Malan is having problems with the rough outside his off stump when facing Jadeja - he has just survived a tight lbw shout while not playing a shot - and Hameed can't get Thakur and Siraj away at the moment. Their partnership is now worth 19 runs but that has taken them 12 overs, meaning the required rate is creeping up and up - the draw is now the strong favourite with the bookies.

          12.15pm: A life for Hameed

          Jadeja has bowled very well to Malan up front, getting one ball to turn alarmingly out of the rough and generally keeping him tied down with four men around the bat, but he does well to skip down the pitch and pick up a single to get Hameed on strike.

          Then, a moment of complete chaos. Hameed has hardly played an outright attacking shot all morning but decides to launch a slog-sweep through wide mid-on and mistimes the shot straight to Mohammed Siraj. But Siraj gives him a life, shelling a straightforward chance and injuring himself in the process, the ball bursting through his hands and into his midriff. A reprieve on 55 - how costly will it prove?

          11.55am: Covid in India camp

          Breaking news from the India camp: three members of support staff, including Ravi Shastri, have contracted Covid-19, as confirmed by PCR tests. For more on this story, click here.

          11.40am: Thakur breaks through

          Rory Burns opens the face to guide Thakur through point for a couple and brings up his fifty in the process, but he is out to the next ball he faces. For the first time in the day, a ball from a seamer moves noticeably off the straight, having angled in towards the batter from round the wicket. Burns gets a thin outside edge through to Pant, and Thakur - bowling his first over of the innings - gets the big breakthrough for India. What a Test he is having.

          Thakur spoke before the start of the day's play about the prospect of getting some reverse-swing and this might have been a hint of it. The ball landed on the seam, and then moved away very late towards the shiny side - it looks as though it almost swung away after hitting the seam, rather than nibbling off the seam itself.

          That brings in Dawid Malan at No. 3, who is immediately surrounded by four close fielders as Jadeja targets the rough outside his off stump. Hameed, meanwhile, has moved to a serene half-century.

          11.15am: Full and straight

          An all-seam diet so far for England's openers, with Bumrah and Umesh nagging away in tandem. They've been noticeably fuller and straighter than they were last night, targeting the stumps, and England have struggled to score at any kind of rate with the field set accordingly - Hameed has clipped a couple of leg glances straight to cleverly-placed fielders at square leg and short midwicket.

          Meanwhile, R Ashwin is sat on his own, away from the rest of the India team, listening to commentary in an earpiece. How much - if at all - will India regret not picking him by the end of the day?

          10.40am: Word from both camps

          Ollie Pope and Shardul Thakur have been speaking to Sky ahead of the final day. "It's a good wicket but that's never an easy time to bat," Pope says about Burns and Hameed's efforts last night. "For the boys to be straight on the ball was very important for us and has put us in a good position.

          "The first aim for us is to get through the first session. It's a quick-scoring ground so you can always catch up but it's about getting the platform in the first session. The ball has gone soft quite quickly which can restrict the scoring a little bit but the outfield is real quick here and if you hit those pockets, you can catch up.

          "Jadeja is going to pose a threat especially to the lefties with the rough but they have a highly-skilled attack. Guys like Bumrah will challenge you in certain ways."

          Thakur, meanwhile, says that "you couldn't ask for anything more" in terms of how the day is set up, with all results in play. "There was a bit of talk last night but all we need is one opening," he says. "If we get two quick wickets then pressure is mounting on the batting team. Fifth day, any pitch in the world, it's not easy.

          "With the old ball there can be a bit of reverse-swing. One side can get scuffed up from that rough. We are looking forward for that reverse-swing somewhere around lunchtime, before or after that."

          10.30am: All results possible

          A tantalising final day in prospect in the sunshine at The Oval, with all four results possible. This would be an all-time record chase for England but the pitch is an absolute road: "If Bumrah comes in and hits Woakesy straight down the ground, it's a great wicket," Moeen Ali said last night.

          Some early news from the India camp: still no Ravi Shastri at the ground, reports Nagraj Gollapdui, as he waits for the results of his PCR test. He also says that Rohit Sharma and Cheteshwar Pujara will go for scans today and are unlikely to take the field - meaning two senior players missing for Virat Kohli in the field. His captaincy will be a key factor in the outcome.