The opening day of England’s tour of India got underway on a rather even keel at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad as the visitors finished the first session of the 1st Test at 108 runs for the loss of three wickets.
England won the toss as Ben Stokes opted to have a bat first against the hosts in the first of a five-match Test series.
Indian skipper Rohit Sharma explained after the toss that he had opted to go with three spinners and two pacers for the opening Test of the series as Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel were named in the lineup, while Kuldeep Yadav missed out on making the team. While England decided to hand bowler Tom Hartley his debut Test cap.
England seemed to have got off to a good start thanks to their openers Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett, who played out the opening pace attack India threw at them with Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj not able to pick up early wickets in the game.
But, after the opening 11 overs of the game on Day 1, India got their first breakthrough through veteran spinner Ashwin as he dismissed Duckett for 35 runs.
The spinner from Tamil Nadu foxed the left-handed batsman as he caught him plumb in front of the wicket as the Englishman was given out for a lbw.
The wicket kickstarted a phase of the game in which India struck in quick succession as the Englishmen fell in clusters.
Jadeja, who was complimenting Ashwin with his left-arm turners from the other end, dismissed Ollie Pope for just a single run shortly after the fall of the opening wicket.
And before England could regroup, the Indian spinners picked up their third scalp of the game as Ashwin got rid of Crawley after the Englishman had made 20 runs off his bat.
Experienced batters Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow were at the crease as the umpire called time out for lunch on Day 1 with England at 108 for 3.
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