Team India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin continued to make inroads in England's batting unit as he claimed a fifer on day 3 of the 5th Test in Dharamsala. The veteran spinner's five wickets in the 2nd innings came as England keeper-batter Ben Foakes went for the slog sweep and the ball hit the stumps.
The 37-year-old had wreaked havoc on England's top-order, dismissing Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley for a single-figure. Ollie Pope played some aesthetic shots but played a false sweep shot against the off-spinner as Yashasvi Jaiswal took a good catch. India closed out the session, with Ashwin dismissing Ben Stokes for the 13th time in the format.
Earlier in the series, the finger spinner became the 9th player to cross 500 Test wickets when he got rid of Zak Crawley.
England on the brink as India close in on 4-1 series victory:
With the visitors already losing 8 wickets, they are on the brink of an innings loss. Ben Stokes and co. toiled hard on day 2 as Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill played aggressively in the opening session to get to their respective centuries. Padikkal and Sarfaraz also hit half-centuries. While India lost 8 wickets by Stumps, Jasprit Bumrah and Kuldeep Yadav had steered the lead past 250.
However, the hosts could only add 4 runs as James Anderson and Shoaib Bashir picked up the remaining two wickets to create their own piece of history.
