Indian bowlers weave magic, England stand at 268/8 on Day One

Indian team will look to capitalise on their bowlers effort on 2nd Day of Mohali test.

He let off top-scorer Jonny Bairstow on 54 (a stumping chance), and then dropped him on 89.

India’s bowling was exacting throughout the day.

There was turn from early, but nothing extravagant, and after the brutish delivery received by Haseeb Hameed in the tenth over, which reared off a length, the bounce largely behaved itself.

Southee – who was belligerent with the bat – then enticed the Pakistan top order into making a string of rash shots, seaming the ball away with a mixture of short and full-length deliveries.

WICKET! Picks up his second wicket of the innings from the very first ball of the day. India have lost a wicket against the run of play here and Vijay has to go back. With that wicket, India went into the lunch break with the upper hand having restricted England to 92/4 in the first session.

Look down the order and even Jos Buttler, who had played really well, and Ben Stokes played poor shots. For India, however, the session yielded three wickets. After winning the toss on day one you try and build a formidable score.

But Umesh produced a spell of swing with the old ball which tested both the set batsman and Buttler, who was trying to adapt to the demands of this format in his first Test match since being dropped 13 months ago. As with the grubber he received in the second innings of the previous Test, there was little Hameed could do except curse his bad luck.

Bairstow kept going at the other end, though. “It helped me and (Mohammed) Shami”, he added. Ravindra Jadeja got one wicket.

Out of Indian bowling unit, Mohammed Shami and Ravichandran Ashwin took one wicket each.

“It is a pretty dry wicket“, said Virat Kohli after losing the toss. Jayant Yadav dismissed the unsafe Joe Root with a delivery that did not bounce as much as the Englishman expected and caught him plumb in front of the wickets. While he continued to rise in the record charts, this particular innings meant more to England, given the context of the situation they were in.

England, who trail the five-match series 1-0, were 205 for five at tea with Bairstow on 66 and Jos Buttler on 38 at the crease after the visitors elected to bat first.

It meant a familiar pairing had to come to the rescue. “It’s a case of just go out and try and score as many runs as possible”. The pacers Shami and Umesh also did their job remarkably well to push back England to the brink.

When you’re batting first on a pitch that is likely to deteriorate, you’ve got to work hard and get runs.

There were some words exchanged between Kohli and Stokes after the dismissal but umpire Marais Erasmus nipped it in the bud.

Stokes, on 29, marched down the pitch to Jadeja only to miss the ball and Patel, replacing the injured Wriddhiman Saha behind the stumps, had all the time in the world to whip off the bails. Vijay knew replays would have confirmed the nick. They did manage to get a couple of decent partnerships, but they were not enough.