Off-spinner Ravichandran Aswhin produced one of his impactful performance outside the sub-continent as India reduced England to 285 for nine on the opening day of the first cricket Test, in Birmingham on Wednesday.
Root 80, Bairstow 70, Jennings 42; Ashwin 4-60
In the first Cricket test of the five-match series, England were 285/ 9 against India on the opening day at Edgbaston in Birmingham.
Run-out of Joe Root sparked an England collapse. Root was on 80 when he and Jonny Bairstow opted for a second run, only for Virat Kohli’s direct hit to beat the dive of the England captain.
From there, England lost four wickets for 27 runs and eventually limped to 285-9.
Earlier, they looked to be taking advantage of winning the toss on a surface that seems true for batting, but is also offering some encouragement to both pace and spin bowlers.
Root shared stands of 72 with Keaton Jennings, who made a watchful 42, and 104 with Bairstow, whose 70 was the most fluent batting of the day.
That's Stumps on Day 1 of the 1st Test.
England 285/9. A four wicket haul for @ashwinravi99#ENGvIND pic.twitter.com/Ty2FhiFHRr
— BCCI (@BCCI) August 1, 2018
India included in-form K.L. Rahul in place of seasoned Cheteshwar Pujara, who is yet to score a fifty this season. The visitors are going in with single spinner Ravichandran Ashwin.
Earlier, England won the toss and elected to bat.
It is England’s 1000th test and it is up to World No. 1 India to spoil the home team party. India last won a Test series in England in 2007 under Rahul Dravid. It will not be an easy task for Virat Kohli-led side to duplicate that feat.
In the current UK tour, India won the Twenty20 series against England but lost the ODI series.
Team
ENGLAND
Alastair Cook, Keaton Jennings, Joe Root (C), Dawid Malan, Jonny Bairstow (W), Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler, Adil Rashid, Sam Curran, Stuart Broad, James Anderson
INDIA
Shikhar Dhawan, Murali Vijay, Lokesh Rahul, Virat Kohli (C), Ajinkya Rahane, Dinesh Karthik (W), Hardik Pandya, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Ishant Sharma