India’s skipper Virat Kohli yet again stamped his authority with a brilliant unbeaten century as he powered the home team to a commendable 451 for seven against England on the third day of the fourth Test at Mumbai on Saturday.
Kohli's 147 – his 15th Test hundred – and an equally confident 136 by Murali Vijay enabled India to extend their first innings lead to 51 runs in reply to England's 400.
The unbroken eighth-wicket stand of 87 between Kohli and rookie Jayant Yadav (30) is expected to have a significant bearing on the outcome of the match.
The day, however, belonged to Virat Kohli, providing an exhibition of top quality Test batsmanship on a track that offered significant turn and bounce,
Kohli's near six-hour effort (359 minutes) was a treat for the capacity crowd at the Wankhede Stadium.
On route to his hundred, he completed 1000 Test runs in a calender year and also completed a personal landmark of 4000 runs in the five-day format. The 15th Test ton also took him past Gundappa Viswanath's tally of 14. The 241-ball knock was studded with 17 boundaries.
Apart from his stand with Jayant, he was also involved in a 116-run partnership with the other centurion Vijay, who hit 10 fours and three sixes in his patient effort that saw him face 282 balls.
This was Vijay's eighth hundred, and a timely one, after successive failures in Visakhapatnam and Mohali.
If Kohli and Jayant continue in the same vein on day four and extend their lead past 100 runs, it will be an onerous task for the Englishmen to make a comeback as they will be batting third on a track where facing Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja may not exactly be the easiest of task at hand.
For England, spinners Moeen Ali (2/139), Adil Rashid (2/152) and Joe Root (2/18) accounted for six of the seven Indian wickets to fall.
Earlier, speedster Jake Ball got England to a fantastic start when he got Cheteshwar Pujara bowled for 47 runs in the second ball of the day. Pujara misjudged the line of the delivery and shouldered arms, which allowed the ball to hit the stumps.
Thereafter, Virat and Vijay rebuilt the Indian innings and took the side to 247/2 at lunch.
However, the home team suffered a mini collapse during the post lunch session after Vijay's departure.
After Vijay was out caught and bowled to Rashid, Nair was trapped leg before by Moeen Ali from round the wicket for 13 runs.
Then Root dismissed both Parthiv Patel (15) and Ashwin (0) in the space of four balls in separate overs.
Things could have been worse had Rashid not dropped Kohli off his own bowling in the next over when the Indian captain was 68 in a score of 315.
He led the hunt for the first innings lead with Jadeja who once stepped out and lofted Root for a six over the straight field.
India lost four wickets in 17 overs while moving from 262 to 307, but Kohli found effective lower-order partners in Jadeja (25) and Jayant to pilot India past the England score and place his team in an advantageous position.
(With inputs from PTI)
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