Yashasvi Jaiswal missed out on a much-deserved hundred as India scored 182 for three at tea on the first day of the second Test against England at Edgbaston on Wednesday. Captain Shubman Gill (42 off 109) and vice-captain Rishabh Pant (14 batting off 28) were at the crease on a surface that appears to be batting-friendly.
England skipper Ben Stokes, who has a penchant for taking wickets at crucial moments, claimed the wicket of Jaiswal (87 off 107) when the opener was caught behind off a short delivery that was going wide. Jaiswal tried to whack the ball too hard, but ended up giving a simple catch to wicketkeeper Jamie Smith.
In the 34th over, Gill was lucky to survive a DRS lbw call off a delivery from Brydon Carse as he managed an inside edge. Gill charged against spinner Shoaib Bashir from time to time and also hit him over extra cover. Joining late in the session, Pant took his time to settle down before taking on Bashir and hitting him for a six over mid-on.
Earlier, Jaiswal continued to play in an aggressive mode despite being beaten by the England pacers. Karun Nair (31 off 50), on the other hand, was looking well set at Number 3 before he was dismissed late in the morning session.
Keeping the overhead conditions in mind, Stokes chose to bowl after winning the toss, but Jaiswal and Nair played well to survive the onslaught of English pacers and added 80 runs for the second wicket. The first one to go, KL Rahul (2 off 26) was a bit unlucky when he played a Chris Woakes delivery on to the stumps. Carse got one delivery to rise sharply minutes before lunch, inducing an outside edge off Nair’s bat that went to Harry Brook at second slip.
Though not much swing was on offer, the ball did seam quite a bit in the first hour of play. Carse targeted Jaiswal’s rib cage, but the India opener did well to deal with this challenge.
Jaiswal began his innings with a couple of cover drives off Carse, who deliberately bowled full to the batter and mixed it up with an odd short ball into the body. Besides the flowing drives, Jaiswal also played a pull and a slap over backward point off Ben Stokes.
Nair, who climbed three places in the batting order from the last game, was offered plenty of full balls from the England pacers and he obliged by driving it through the cover and straight boundary.
With frontline pacer Jasprit Bumrah rested for the game, India brought in Akash Deep in his place. It also replaced Sai Sudharsan with Washington Sundar and Shardul Thakur with Nitish Kumar Reddy.
The selectors once again ignored Kuldeep Yadav as they picked a second spinner in batting all-rounder Washington. For a team that failed to take 20 wickets at Leeds, the decision to add an extra batsman was questionable.
Scoreboard at tea:
India 1st Innings: Yashasvi Jaiswal c Smith b Stokes 87, KL Rahul b Woakes 2, Karun Nair c Brook b Carse 31, Shubman Gill batting 42, Rishabh Pant batting 14; Extras: (LB-4, NB-2) 6 Total: (For 3 wkts, 53 overs) 182; Fall of wkts: 1-15, 2-95, 3-161.
Bowling: Chris Woakes 13-5-35-1, Brydon Carse 11-1-26-1, Josh Tongue 10-0-52-0, Ben Stokes 10-0-33-1, Shoaib Bashir 9-0-32-0.
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