India captain Rohit Sharma’s bittersweet affair with the DRS continued on Sunday after he hesitantly opted for a review over an LBW appeal against his England counterpart Ben Stokes, but the latter survived via umpire’s call just minutes before the stroke of Tea on Day 3 in Ranchi. Although it wasn’t a bad review from India, the talk of the scene turned out to be Rohit’s epic one-liner, caught on stump-mic, which left commentators in splits.
It happened in the 30th over of England’s second innings in the fourth Test where Ravindra Jadeja dished out a flighted delivery on the middle that spun back sharply to hit Stokes on the pad. The on-field umpire denied after Indian players broke into a loud appeal, but Jadeja seemed strongly convinced, as it has always been, that it was out.
The Indian players quickly got together around captain Rohit with wicketkeeper Dhruv Jurel suggesting that the ball was slipping outside the leg stump, while Kuldeep Yadav sided with Jadeja. With the clock ticking away, Rohit, who perhaps panicked a bit, urged the players to think quickly. He said: “Kuch seconds baaki hain, sab log dimaag lagao (Only a few seconds left, put your heads together).”
There was no constructive answer from his teammates, but with one second left on the clock, Rohit signalled for a DRS review. There was no bat involved, as revealed by UltraEdge. The impact was in line with the leg stump, said the tracker. Yet Stokes posed with a wry smile after he survived via umpire’s call, which he blatantly criticised a few days back.
Despite what unfolded during those few minutes, it was Rohit’s aforementioned one-line that managed to steal the show. Dinesh Karthik quickly translated the Hindi words to English saying: “We now know how DRS conversations carry out,” while fellow veteran wicketkeeper-batter Deep Dasgupta couldn’t control his laughter as the broadcasters replayed that video again.
Stokes was eventually dismissed by Kuldeep a few overs later as England were reduced to 120 for five at Tea.
India made a strong start to the third innings of the Ranchi Test after England took a narrow 46-run lead. Ravichandran Ashwin struck thrice quickly before Kuldeep picked up two more wickets as England managed to extend their lead to 166 runs.