Opener Yashasvi Jaiswal led India’s explosive reply to England’s 246, which had been driven by captain Ben Stokes’ half-century on an all-attacking opening day of the first Test at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Thursday.
Hosts India were 119-1 at stumps in Hyderabad and trailing England by 127 runs, with skipper Rohit Sharma (24) the sole wicket. Jaiswal, on 76 off 70 balls, and Shubman Gill, on 14, were batting at close of play.
IND vs ENG 1st Test Day 1 – HIGHLIGHTS
England batter Ben Duckett at the end of the day’s play said if they had managed to get more wickets, things would have been different.
“It’s spinning quite a lot on day one. We could have easily had three or four [wickets] there tonight and it could have been very different. The way they played at the top was quite positive, and that’s fair play to them. I don’t think we necessarily thought they were going to come out and play like that, but Stokesy [Ben Stokes] got us to what we think was an above-par score,” Ben Duckett was quoted as saying during an interview with talkSPORT.
“It was quite a good day. I thought we were pretty happy there, getting bowled out for what we were. I thought Stokesy was superb. We found it pretty tricky and I think, to be honest, they played well and really positively tonight. It’s tough work against that attack, and I thought we grafted really well today… when the ball is spinning like that on day one, it can be quite tough,” Duckett added.
Duckett feels the reason India decided to attack from the start is an indication that the pitch may deteriorate as the game wears on.
“You have to pay credit to them: they played really well tonight and were very attacking, which is positive. They don’t always go about it like that, so to go about it that way shows that they probably think that pitch is going to get quite a bit worse,” Duckett said.
Reflecting on the English dismissals, Duckett said: “That’s going to happen out here, and that’s something that we’ll have good belief in when we’re bowling. We could easily take three or four [wickets] tomorrow morning for 10 runs.”
“It feels like a tricky pitch to start on. Shubman (Gill) there, we could have had him there. It looked like a dead lbw [Tom Hartley had rapped the Indian batter when his score read just one] and somehow, it’s bouncing over the stumps. It’s one of those things. We’ll stick to our mantra and that’s taking wickets and looking to be positive. Hopefully, that will happen for us as well.”
When asked about Jaiswal’s attacking innings, Duckett said: “I think he played beautifully. These are home conditions [for India] and you’d expect nothing less of their lads than to play well out here. Even the wicket to get Rohit, they were looking quite set with those two and then that happened. Fingers crossed, if moments like that happen tomorrow, we can stick three or four [wickets] on them and you never know. If we can keep them to around our score, or even a little bit of a lead, I think we’re right in the game.”
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