LONDON (AP) — India removed England’s Ben Duckett and stand-in captain Ollie Pope to effectively be six wickets from tying the series on day four Sunday of the fifth test at the Oval.
England, absent the injured allrounder Chris Woakes, was 164-3 at lunch in pursuit of 374 to win the test and clinch the series 3-1.
Harry Brook was 38 not out with Joe Root on 23 and England needing 210 more runs.
Root survived an umpire’s call on 3 and Brook should have been out on 19 but Mohammed Siraj, with ball in hand, stumbled back on to the boundary cushion.
The odds remained in India’s favor despite England’s history of gunning down big targets.
England resumed the day on 50-1 and scored only 37 runs in the first hour as the India seamers got the ball to nip around under London’s grey skies.
Ben Duckett, who lost his opening partner Zak Crawley to the last ball on Saturday, was uncharacteristically subdued, possibly still bothered by the hit on his glove by Prasidh Krishna late Saturday.
He still reached his fourth fifty of the series, though, with an edged four past gully. But the pressure from Siraj and Akash Deep tempted him to go after Krishna and give up his wicket by edging to Lokesh Rahul at first slip.
Duckett scored 54 off 83 balls.
The Oval lights came on and Root was under fire, notably from Krishna, who unsuccessfully appealed for lbw. Reviews showed the ball clipping leg stump.
Pope unleashed three boundaries in an over against Krishna but his second innings troubles returned when he was out to a Siraj nip-backer.
Pope averages 46.69 in first innings but 19.64 in second innings. His 27 was his second highest score in a fourth innings.
Siraj’s 20th wicket made him the leading wicket-taker in the series.
Brook joined Root and was dropped on 19 off Krishna by Siraj on the boundary. Brook rubbed salt into the wound by smacking 16 runs off the over.
About 20 minutes later when lunch arrived, a still sorry Siraj pointedly walked over to Krishna to give him a hug.
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