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On a day when both Ashwin and Bairstow reached the milestone of 100 tests for their country, Kuldeep stole the show with his magical bowling spell of 5 for 72 runs. Ashwin made his memorable day more memorable by bagging four. Meanwhile, Jaiswal achieved the feat of scoring the quickest 1000 runs by an Indian taking only nine innings to do so.
The pitch for the first day was brown with an excellent outfield. England captain Ben Stokes won the toss and opted to bat first.
After a “workload management” break in the fourth test, Jasprit Bumrah is back in the side, with 23-year-old Devdutt Padikkal making his debut replacing Rajat Patidar who is suffering from a sore ankle. England came to this match with one change from the previous match with Mark Wood coming in.
Bhumrah opened India’s attack with Crawley and Duckett at the other end, providing a solid start and scoring 50 50-run partnership. Soon left-arm unorthodox spinner Kuldeep picked the wicket of Ben Duckett, Kuldeep bagged another soon in the form of Ollie Pope. The score at lunch was 100 for the loss of 2 wickets.
Post Lunch Kuldeep continued his dominance and got Crawley out for 79 runs who was playing brilliantly in the first session. Subsequently, Root and Bairstow started to stitch a meaningful partnership it was Kuldeep who struck again and bagged his fifer at tea. Jadeja at the other end got Root making him his favourite victim in test cricket alongside Steve Smith & Angelo Mathews for the eighth time.
Ashwin joined the party late but swept away the entire lower order and tailenders and grabbed 4 for 51. England’s innings ended at 218 runs. In response, India destructively opened their batting with both Rohit & Jaiswal hitting the English bowlers for fun. Both the openers reached the 50 runs mark.
Jaiswal also became the 4th youngest Indian batsman to reach the thousand-run mark. At the end of Day 1 India is at a score of 135 for the loss of 1 wicket, captain Rohit Sharma remains unbeaten at 52 alongside Subhman Gill batting at 26.
