India vs England Test 02- Day 01
The inaugural test match at the ACA-VCDA Stadium in Vizag witnessed a phenomenal batting performance from the Indian maestros Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara against England in the sending test match of the series. After winning the toss on a spinner friendly wicket, the Indian captain Virat Kohli opted to bat first and set a target for the visiting team. Jayant Yadav who had made his ODI debut at this very stadium got his test cap from the veteran Ravi Shastri and replaced Amit Mishra in the team. On the other hand, Gautam Gambhir was replaced by KL Rahul who was included in the squad recently.
The opening batsmen couldn’t hold their wickets for long and fell for Stuart Broad reducing to 22-2. The game was changed when Pujara and Kohli decided to stay glued to their wickets and not play any silly shot which could cause India another wicket. Soon enough the partnership grew and England started to struggle for a wicket. There were a couple of chances when Pujara and Kohli had some miscommunication while running between the wickets but England couldn’t cash on it. Kohli was dropped by Adil Rashid on 56 which resulted in Kohli scoring even more runs and putting the opposition under pressure.
At a point there was a virtual race between both the batsmen about who’ll score a century first when a stray dog interrupted the play and forced the teams to take an early tea. Post tea, both the batsmen scored their centuries and put India in a commanding position. Pujara fell for Anderson’s shortish delivery at 119. In came Ajinkya Rahane who had faced trouble in the last match and had got out cheaply. His technique seemed better and improved in this match and he played 61 balls and made 23 runs before he got out on Anderson’s bowling. Meanwhile Virat Kohli was cruising his way to 150 runs smoothly and was partnered by Ashwin after Rahane’s dismissal. A well earned 151* from Kohli and steadfast 119 from Pujara helped India reach a total of 317 runs for the loss of 4 wickets at the end of days play. Despite the experts were talking about the spinner friendly wicket, all the four wickets which fell today were by fast bowlers and the English spinners couldn’t harm the Indian batting lineup in any way. Captain Alastair Cook didn’t use his best spinner Moeen Ali to his best and this may have caused a little drawback for England.
India will be hoping to see a double century from their captain once again and would want India to score a mammoth total before falling prey for the opposition bowling attack.