Second Test: India inch towards series-levelling win, England 116-7 at lunch

CHENNAI: India closed in on a series-levelling win in the second Test against England here on Tuesday, reducing the visitors to 116 for 7 in pursuit of 482 at lunch on the fourth day.

Spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Axar Patel have picked up three wickets each so far, while left-arm off-spinner Kuldeep Yadav struck at the stroke of lunch, getting Ben Foakes (2) to mistime a sweep for a catch to Patel.

At lunch, skipper Joe Root was holding fort on 33 (90 balls, 3 fours) with England adding 63 runs in the first session.

The side was 53/3 overnight.

Closer to the lunch break, Root, on 31, survived when Mohammed Siraj dropped a sitter in the point region after the England skipper went for a reverse sweep off Kuldeep.

Earlier, local star Ashwin struck with his first ball of the day when he had Dan Lawrence (26, 53 balls, 2X4, 1X6) stumped brilliantly by Rishabh Pant off a delivery wide down the leg-side.

Stokes (8), usually an aggressive player, was defensive on Tuesday.

After pottering around for 51 balls and failing to get going, he fell to Ashwin.

His defensive prod resulted in an inside edge and lobbed to Virat Kohli who dived forward to take a good catch.

Ollie Pope (12), who looked to score unlike a defensive Stokes, ventured to play a slog-sweep which led to his dismissal as the top edge flew to Ishant Sharma in the deep to give Patel his third wicket.

Brief Scores: India: 329 and 286 all out in 86.5 overs.

England: 134 and 116/7 in 48.3 overs (Joe Root 33 batting, D Lawrence 26; R Ashwin 3/42, Axar Patel 3/41).