India post their highest ever score in Test cricket as they seize near-300 run lead thanks to Karun Nair triple century

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Karun Nair’s maiden triple hundred helped India post the highest Test score ever made against England on a chastening fourth day of this final Test.

When India finally declared on 759 for seven, they had a lead of 282 and a possible 95 overs left in the game to bowl England out and complete an emphatic 4-0 series win.

Alastair Cook’s side reached the close on 12 without loss. They need to bat out the final day to regain some of their battered pride.

India’s total eclipsed the 751 for five declared the West Indies made at Antigua in 2004 – the previous highest total England had conceded in their Test history.

Nair, whose highest Test score before this was 13, ended the innings unbeaten on 303.

India had delayed their declaration to allow the 25-year-old to get to the landmark.

It may cost them victory in this match but with a 3-0 lead already and the series wrapped up it was a luxury they could afford.

Nair became only the third man in Test history to make his maiden hundred a triple, following West Indies’ Garry Sobers, who made an unbeaten 365 against Pakistan at Jamaica in 1958, and Australia’s Bob Simpson, who scored 311 against England at Old Trafford in 1964.

The fact he was dropped by Cook at slip on 34 on day three added salt into English wounds. Nair was also reprieved on 154 when he edged Adil Rashid behind. Umpire Simon Fry said not out. England had no reviews left after wasting two the previous evening. Technology showed the batsman definitely hit the ball.

Nair was also dropped on 217 by Joe Root and should have been stumped by wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow on 246.

His luck, unlike England’s, was in though and this is an innings that will surely make the Bangalore-born batsman’s career.

For England, playing the last of 17 Tests this year, the punishment they suffered today verged on the cruel. Whether or not they can save this Test on the final day will tell much about their character.

Yet given their hectic schedule, which has included seven Tests on the sub-continent in the past nine weeks, nobody could blame them if they did fall to yet another defeat.

The one cause for optimism is that this pitch is extremely flat. Given the runs India piled up in reply to England’s first-innings 477, that should come as no surprise.

The motivation for the tourists, though, is that this is their final Test for almost seven months and the future of Cook’s captaincy may well hinge on its result. Cook may have already made up his mind, being kept in the field for 190 overs can probably sap the enthusiasm of the most optimistic of men.

We will find out his decision early next month when Cook sits down with Andrew Strauss, England’s director of cricket, to discuss his future.

But the fact England’s performances in this series have deteriorated as the series has gone on cannot be put down to just tiredness. Cook’s own decision making is becoming increasingly baffling and he appears a man in need of a permanent break from the captaincy.

In circumstances such as these it was perhaps inevitable that what could go wrong for England on a crushing fourth day did.

As well as Nair’s let-offs Murali Vijay was also spared in the morning session when he edged Stuart Broad behind on 21. Australian umpire Simon Fry was unmoved and with no reviews left, Cook’s side were helpless. Technology showed Vijay had hit the ball.

At least that mistake only cost England eight runs, Liam Dawson picking up his first Test wicket before lunch when he trapped Vijay lbw on 29.

Nair’s reprieve on 154 and the two that followed proved rather more expensive.

So desperate did England get for a wicket in the afternoon session that they turned to the bowling of Keaton Jennings. The Durham opener, playing in only his second Test, bowls medium pace but he appeared to have finagled a wicket, umpire Simon Fry giving Ravichandran Ashwin out lbw on 54. India would have been 582 for five but Ashwin, the local hero of Chennai, reviewed the decision and, as was England’s ill-fortune, he was reprieved when Hawkeye showed the ball missing the stumps.

England did eventually get Ashwin out on 67, caught at cover point off Broad’s bowling to end a 181-run stand with Nair. By that point India, on 616 for six, had stretched their lead to 139. Nair had reached 200 by then, driving Jennings through the covers to reach his landmark.

However, things unravelled even more for England as Nair and Ravindra Jadeja shared a seventh-wicket stand of 138.

That was terminated when Jadeja found Jake Ball at long on attempting to hit Dawson for six. India were now 754 for seven and Nair on the on the verge of history.

He made it five balls later, hitting Rashid through for four after a misfield by Cook at point.

It summed up England’s wretched day.