Indian rearguard clinches draw for tourists on enthralling final day

NICK FRIEND AT BRISTOL: That it ended in a hard-fought draw was no slight on either team; rather, a nod to a fine game decided by a doughty rearguard from Sneh Rana

Bristol (fourth day of four): England 396-9d, India 231, 344-8 - match drawn

Scorecard

England and India drew in the one-off Test at Bristol after a tremendous final-day rearguard from debutante Sneh Rana frustrated the hosts and meant that the white-ball leg of the multiformat series will begin all-square.

Heather Knight’s side had come into the day needing nine wickets, with Mithali Raj’s tourists well aware that they would have to bat for the vast majority of the day after being asked to follow-on on Friday.

When Shafali Verma and Deepti Sharma both fell before lunch – the latter to an ugly mow in the final over before the interval – England appeared to be in the driving seat, with Katherine Brunt taking an extraordinary one-handed catch at long-on to dismiss Verma, who made the second half century of her debut.

Raj was bowled by a quicker delivery from Sophie Ecclestone immediately after lunch to complete a miserable game for the visiting captain, before Punam Raut’s 104-ball vigil ended soon afterwards, pulling a Nat Sciver longhop straight at square leg – a dismissal that left two new batters, Harmanpreet Kaur and Pooja Vastrakar, at the crease with more than 50 overs remaining in the day.

When Vastrakar missed an attempted heave off Knight to give England a sixth wicket, the lead stood at just 27, with the hosts looking like completing a first home Test win since 2005 with the final session unused. But Rana, an off-spinning allrounder who had earlier taken four wickets in England’s first innings, played a tremendous, resilient hand that prevented England from making further inroads.

Much of the talk before and during the Test until that point had been about the talent of both sides’ young debutantes – chiefly Verma and England’s Sophia Dunkley, who had both impressed with the bat earlier. But it was Rana, 27, and playing her first international match for five years – and her first Test ever – whose contribution and concentration ultimately determined the result at Nevil Road.

^{Shafali Verma was named player of the match}

With wicketkeeper Taniya Bhatia for company, also on debut, the pair put on 104 for the ninth wicket, hardly offering England a chance, with the home side 179 runs behind when a draw was ultimately settled upon with 12 overs officially remaining in the day.

England were left frustrated: Ecclestone toiled for 64 overs in two-and-a-half days as the only frontline spinner selected by Knight and head coach Lisa Keightley, while Knight’s own match figures pointed to a seam-heavy selection on a pitch that offered little to a five-strong right-arm-seam attack.

Not that they ever stopped running in: Sciver bowled 16 overs for 21, including an initial 10-over spell at a cost of just a single run, while Knight turned to Georgia Elwiss for the first time in the match when England had already spent 197.2 overs in the field consecutively across two innings. Leg-spinner Sarah Glenn and off-spinner Mady Villiers were conspicuous by their absence.

It felt a long time ago that England had won the toss and elected to bat with the sun out; half centuries for Tammy Beaumont, Knight and Sophia Dunkley had given them a final total of 396 for 9, before India’s response was led by Verma and Smriti Mandhana.

When they both fell, England ran through their visitors to enforce the follow-on amid an iffy weather forecast, and they would have been confident this morning of completing victory in a contest that did much to fly the flag for a more regular stream of women’s Test cricket. That it ended in a hard-fought draw was no slight on either team; rather, a nod to a fine game decided by a doughty rearguard from Rana.

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