London, Aug 1 (IANS) Pacers Mohammed Siraj and Prasidh Krishna took three wickets each to spearhead India’s spirited fightback and leave England at 215/7 in 42.5 overs at tea on day two of the fifth Test of the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy at The Oval here on Friday.

Primed to take a lead after reaching 109/1 at lunch, England lost six wickets in the afternoon session, which meant they still trail India by nine runs and will be hoping for Harry Brook, who’s unbeaten on 33, to give them a slender lead.

India looked down and out when the second session began, but the bowlers put up a much-improved show, bowling tighter lines, good lengths, and hitting the stumps much more to keep the pressure on the batters to get the session in their favour.

In the post-lunch session, Zak Crawley had issues in timing the ball well, and in an attempt to pull off Prasidh, the right-handed batter top-edged to mid-wicket and fell for 64. Four overs later, Siraj got a length ball to come back in sharply and beat Ollie Pope’s inside edge to trap him lbw for 22. India challenged the on-field call and got it in their favour as replays showed the ball hitting the middle and leg stumps.

Brook and Joe Root tried stabilising England’s innings by hitting five boundaries in their brief 33-run stand, before Siraj trapped the latter plumb lbw with a nip-backer coming in sharply again, as England also burnt a review.

Siraj got more rewards for his relentless toil when his inswinging yorker trapped Jacob Bethell lbw for just six. Prasidh then took over and dismissed Jamie Smith, who tried to punch off the back foot, but edged to KL Rahul, who took a sharp catch at second slip. At the stroke of tea, Prasidh trapped Jamie Overton plumb lbw for duck, as the session came to an end in India’s favour.

Brief scores:

India 224 in 69.4 overs (Karun Nair 57, B Sai Sudharsan 38; Gus Atkinson 5-33, Josh Tongue 3-57) lead England 215/7 in 42.5 overs (Zak Crawley 64, Ben Duckett 43; Prasidh Krishna 3-51, Mohammed Siraj 3-66) by nine runs

–IANS

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