Lunch England 102 for 3 (Root 35*, Ashwin 2-35) v India
Live scorecard and ball-by-ball details
01:21
Kalra: Big opportunity for Mishra
On what seemed like a morning of nerves for everybody – as if keeping in with the political climate in the world and the economic climate in India – India emerged with slight advantage with three wickets in the second hour. Winning the toss and dropped twice behind the wicket, Alastair Cook already enjoyed more luck before the series was two overs old than Kane Williamson did all series, but England – veterans of DRS – made poor use of the reviews twice, losing Cook when he was not out and then wasting it when debutant Haseeb Hameed was dead plumb. The 19-year-old debutant, the youngest England player to be opening in his first Test, was partly culpable on both occasions: first discouraging the Cook review when the ball clearly missing and then going for a wasteful review on Joe Root’s advice.
It was India who fluffed their lines in the first hour. Having lost their first toss at home under Virat Kohli, India’s quicks made an impressive start, beating Cook’s bat or hitting the outside half of it more often than Cook was in control. On a pitch not expected to have two much of bounce, the cordon had crept in closer. The first chance, though, travelled at a comfortable height to Ajinkya Rahane at gully, but it arguably came too fast at him. Mohammed Shami was the bowler here. In the next over, Umesh Yadav got a soft edge, which was turned into a chance because Kohli was closer than normal at second slip, but India captain couldn’t hold on to the most difficult of the three chances in the morning. The resultant two runs took Cook to 3.
Hameed, who had looked solid to suggest he was an old-fashioned opener who didn’t mind the new fashion of cutting in the air when the ball is short, then edged Yadav in the sixth over. At shin high and regulation pace, this was the simplest chance of the morning, but this M Vijay dropped it. Hameed was on 13 then.
The introduction of spin just before the drinks break brought the run rate down after it had nudged four at one stage, but with not much turn on offer England looked quite comfortable going into the drinks break. Cook looked to move across to Ravindra Jadeja who turns the ball back in for him, and Haseeb did the same to R Ashwin. To the first ball after drinks, though, Cook got too far across and was beaten on the inside edge to a shortish delivery. Given out, he had a chat with Hameed, but walked off. Had he not, DRS would have reinstated him because the ball was missing the leg stump by a long way.
It’s unlikely anybody would have told Hameed he could have saved his captain, but he looked solid in negating Ashwin and Jadeja in the first few exchanges. The only criticism with him would be he missed out on a short ball and two full tosses from Ashwin, a slow starter, early in the piece. Ashwin then moved round the wicket to ask Hameed what more had he got after off-stump guard had negated the bowler on a first-day pitch. With his 11th ball from round the wicket to Hameed, Ashwin had him dead in front, with an offbreak that didn’t turn as much as the batsman expected it to. This, Ashwin’s seventh over, was also around a couple of overs from the time Ashwin had hit his length.
Full report to follow…
Sidharth Monga is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo
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Source: ESPN Crickinfo