England vs India: Hosts falter after promising beginning

Team England failed miserably to capitalise on the start given by top order after they won the toss and decided to bat first. The first session belonged to the hosts as Keaton Jennings and Joe Root steadied the ship after Alastair Cook perished on R Ashwin’s teasing off break delivery. They were substantially derailed by some good accurate bowling by the off spinner along with hostile pace man Mohammad Shami.

England begun the second session in a positive state as they had the upper hand in the first stage of the game. In the eighth over of the afternoon session, England lost their second wicket in the form of Keaton Jennings who scored a handy 42 runs before being cleaned up by Shami. Dawid Malan was the next batsman to join Jennings in the pavilion as Shami continued his gruesome bowling. The youngster who performed well against India A in the recently concluded match, bite the dust on the score of just eight runs.

Also read: England vs India: Ashwin strikes but England dominate first session

Despite the two wickets, the second session also belonged to Root’s army as Jonny Bairstow played some impeccable strokes along with his captain to hold the innings together. At tea, the scores read, 163 for the loss of three wickets. When the two batsman walked out it seemed as if the wicket keeper batsman had the best tea of his life, he looked so fluent and lively at the crease that he reached to a score of 70 runs in no time while his skipper was more than happy playing the second fiddle.

Virat Kohli brought Umesh Yadav back into the attack and he delivered. He got rid of Bairstow who scored at rate of nots. He made 70 off just 88 balls. A bizarre incident followed his departure as the skipper got run out on the score of 80, and guess who was the man behind the run out? It was none other than his rival captain, Virat Kohli. Ashwin added to the misery of England by sending Jos Buttler back to the pavilion in no time giving India the edge over the home side.

Brief scores: England 242/6 in 72 overs ( Joe Root 80, Jonny Bairstow 70, R Ashwin 17-3-46-2, Mohammad Shami 16-1-57-2