Nottinghamshire’s Jake Ball was out to the last ball of day four as England battled, seemingly in vain, to save the fourth Test in Mumbai.

England finished a dramatic final session on 182 for 6, which included a brave partnership of 92 between the Yorkshire duo of Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow.

The pair came together with England in dire straits at 49 for 3. Root was eventually out for a classy 77 off 112 balls, while Bairstow finished the day unbeaten on 50.

Despite the seemingly impossible position, James Anderson is refusing to accept defeat heading into day five.

“It was a tough day for us, we came here this morning thinking if we can get those three wickets we are still in the game,” he said.

“Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, it was probably our worst morning of the tour. They played really well, Kohli obviously played fantastically, supported by Yadav.

“We said before this game that we wanted to be more positive with the bat, rotating the strike and being positive with your footwork.

“I thought we did that really well in the first innings and we showed it again with Joe, and I thought Jonny played really well as well.

“We have got to keep believing, we’ve still got batting to come. We don’t want a draw, we want to try and win this game.”  

Earlier in the day, India’s captain Virat Kohli gave a batting masterclass in scoring 235 as India compiled 631 all out.

Kohli became only the fourth batsman in history, after, Don Bradman, Michael Clarke and Brendan McCullum, to score three double hundred’s in a calendar year, as India piled on 138 runs in the morning session session.

Kohli’s 200 came of 302 deliveries, took 450 minutes and included 23 boundaries. Yadav’s innings of 104 was the highest ever by an Indian number nine.

Chances were few and far between, although Kohli gave a sharp caught and bowled chance to Anderson on 191, while Yadav gloved one off Rashid that fell just short of a diving Stokes at slip.

Yadav was finally out stumped by Bairstow off Rashid for 104 as India looked to accelerate, ending the partnership for the eighth wicket at a mammoth 241.

His partnership with his captain was worth 241 runs.  

Woakes was blasted back over his head for six as the Indian captain started to move into one-day mode.

Kohli was eventually out for a majestic 235, off 340 balls, caught on the cover boundary by Anderson, off Woakes.

Indian batting great Sunil Gavaskar said: “From the word go, everything was in the middle of the bat. It is one of the greatest double centuries you could ever hope to see.”

England wrapped up the innings when Bhuvneshwar Kumar was caught in the deep by Woakes of Rashid, but the first innings lead stood at a mighty 231.

England’s second innings got off to the worst possible start with Keaton Jennings out lbw to Kumar first ball. Jennings, who could not repeat his heroics of the first innings, became the first ever batsmen to score a century and a golden duck in his first Test.

Jadeja and Ashwin were introduced from the eighth over of the innings as England’s perennial trial by spin recommenced.

Cook was trapped lbw by Jadeja for 18, giving the left arm spinner his 100th Test wicket. Moeen followed quickly for nought, caught by Vijay off Jadeja.

Root brought up his 50 off 75 balls after tea with a reverse-sweep off Ashwin and - together with the increasingly confident Bairstow - the pair were scoring 4 runs an over.

But India struck a major blow when Root was trapped lbw by Yadav, leaving England 141 for 4.

And although Ben Stokes continued to take the fight to India, he was unlucky to reverse-sweep Ashwin off his boot to Vijay at slip for 18.

Ball then came in as night-watchman and, although he fell for two in the last act of the day, he had at least done the job required of protecting the senior batsmen.

 

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