Follow UsOne of the most extraordinary assaults against the new ball in Test history was launched today by England’s opening pairing of Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley, who, on a green top, blasted 92 off just 12.5 overs to stun India.
India entered the bowling innings full of hope, having seen the England speedsters seam the ball a mile, but they were in for a brutal reality check as they got shell-shocked by a ludicrous assault from the two openers.
England were 18/0 after 3 overs, but the real turning point of the innings came in the final ball of the fourth over, where Duckett reverse-scooped Akash Deep for a six, after being beaten by the bowler multiple times. What followed after this was a brutal onslaught as the next 8 overs yielded 68 runs, with both Duckett and Crawley humiliating the Indian speedsters.
Between them, in their partnership, the two openers hit 16 fours and two sixes, with 11 of these fours coming off the bat of Crawley. And nearly every single one of these boundaries came through the off-side, with the right-hander punishing anything remotely full. Duckett, meanwhile, was responsible for both the sixes, both scoops - one a reverse scoop and the other a conventional scoop over fine-leg.
The respite finally came in the 13th over for India when Duckett nicked an attempted reverse-scoop off Akash Deep to the wicketkeeper Dhruv Jurel.
But it didn’t matter as the damage had already been done.
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