There is no stopping Ravichandran Ashwin.

The off-spinner copped a bit of criticism after the first India-England Test in Rajkot where he finished with a match-haul of only three wickets in two innings and gave away 230 runs.

In Vizag though, he proved why he is the No. 1 Test bowler in the International Cricket Council’s rankings. On the second day of the Test, he struck a killer blow - dismissing Joe Root just when the English batsman looked dangerous. He demolished Ben Duckett’s stumps as well to finish the day with two wickets.

Then on the third day, he was on the money again. England had finished the first session of the day, having lost just a single wicket. But any hopes of a recovery were soon destroyed by Ashwin. Ben Stokes’s battling 72 was brought to an end as the off-spinning ace rapped the left-hander in front of his stumps and all of England hopes of a resurgence skydived. Then, to add further insult to injury, the off-spinner nipped out England’s last two wickets in consecutive deliveries to dismiss England for 255, ensuring that they could not avoid the follow-on.

And through that spell, Ashwin also went past the 50-wicket mark in 2016, becoming only the second Indian bowler after Harbhajan Singh to take more than 50 wickets in two consecutive calendar years. And with 52 wickets so far in 2016, he is just two wickets behind Sri Lanka’s Rangana Herath, who with 54 wickets, is marginally ahead of him.

For England, it just went from bad to worse. India decided not to enforce the follow-on which means they are staring at another long day in the field, further exacerbated by the fact that one of their frontline pacers Stuart Broad is nursing a foot injury. India went into tea at 8/0 in the second innings, with a lead of 208 runs and ten wickets still in hand.

Brief scores:

India 455 (Virat Kohli 167, Cheteshwar Pujara 119; Moeen Ali 3/98, James Anderson 3/62) and 8/0 lead England 255 all out (Ben Stokes 70, Joe Root 53; Ravichandran Ashwin 5/67, Mohammed Shami 1/28) by 208 runs.