But the big one for India was Root’s wicket, England’s best player of spin and top scorer with a fluent 80 runs in the first innings, who flicked a ball to KL Rahul who made a low catch at leg slip. Before this, India have won Tests at The Oval (1971), Lord’s and Leeds (1986), Leeds (2002), Nottingham (2007) and Lord’s (2014).
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For Yadav, the significance may not be historical (being part of the opposition’s 1,000th Test) but performance led, tinged with the nervousness of starting the first act of a much awaited and much spoken about series. Kapil Dev and Rahul Dravid repeated history in 1986 and 2007 respectively.
“Virat had to play through various phases where run making wasn’t that easy. It’s such a close Test match”.
Edgbaston has hosted six Tests between the two sides, with England leading 5-0 on head-to-head record. Their partnership looked good for many more, but bad light due to heavy cloud stopped play for approximately 16 minutes.
After all, this Test may have already been lost were it not for the Surrey star’s efforts during the first three days.
“What I would like to see is whether we have learned from South Africa”.
Ravichandran Ashwin and Ishant Sharma ripped through the cream of England’s batting to leave India in command on the third day of the first Test at Edgbaston on Friday.
India have always been criticised for their poor close catching but England, with the tourists still on 100 for five, dropped two slip chances of their own, with Malan reprieving Kohli off Anderson.
He was soon slipping off his wedding ring from around his neck and kissing it in a defiant message to his critics who had blamed for his poor form during the 2014 England series, when he averaged just 13.40, to his now wife Anushka.
Curran helped them to a decent total but, with five Tests in six weeks, they will need to find a way to stop these collapses happening.
“I don’t know where the label (of being a defensive bowler) came from”.
“Gavaskar played in a different era and I’m not saying Tendulkar is any lesser player”.
Initially things were looking very good for India. I need to be in the most convinced and clear mental space that I can be and that happens when I am focused on what I need to do.
“To go out in that situation and show the guts and determination he did to get the team back into the match, when it looked like we were down and out, I thought was brilliant from such a young guy”, he added. “I try to prepare the best way possible that I can and help my team as much as possible”, he said.
In the first Test match at Birmingham’s Edgbaston between India and England, the Indian innings faltered on the second day, while captain Virat Kohli held fort from on one end.
For England, Bairstow was the top scorer in the morning session, stroking his way to 28 runs off 40 balls with five boundaries.
However, Kohli adjusted his technique, playing more on the front foot, in order to negate the moving ball.
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Talking about his strategies, Ishant said that he just wanted that he ws advised by the bowling coach to bowl around the stumps at the start of his spell.
