England’s Haseeb Hameed hits half-century on debut

After exciting five days of Test cricket, the first Test between India and England ended in a draw on Sunday at Rajkot. Ravindrachandran Ashwin (32 of 53 balls) and Ravindra Jadeja (32 of 33 balls) made valuable partnerships that saved India the game. While the wickets were tumbling at one end, Virat Kohli stood tall at the other end to see off the day.

Better fielding will be a good start, because India can not afford to drop the amount of catches they did again in this series, even in more helpful conditions. “We were able to get closer to England’s total and we are still in the game”.

Kohli became the first Indian skipper in over 65 years to be dismissed hit-wicket while Rahane was dismissed cheaply before Ashwin and Saha steadied the rocking boat with a half century stand. Not taking anything away from the England bowlers, but with 540 on the board, it’s a different ball game.

“Talking about his innings, Kohli said: “(It was a) good opportunity to find out new things about your (his) game. “Got to play well enough to be in it towards the end, and we were in it”. “Important to convince yourself you can negotiate what’s thrown at you”, he added.

England declared at 260 for 3 before tea was taken on the final day.

The Worcestershire all-rounder was rewarded for his exploits with bat and ball during the five days.

Brief scores: England 537 & 211/2 (Cook 105 no, Hameed 82) vs India 488.

“It’s still a pretty good wicket but it has gone slower”. If in the morning session we get 3-4 quick wickets, in the last session we can score 200 runs and go for it.

Earlier, Cook brought up his sixth hundred against India, with five of them having come while touring the country.

Cook also heaped praises on promising debutant batsman Haseeb Hameed and spinner Adil Rashid.

The Indians lost Gautam Gambhir to Chris Woakes for a duck while Cheteshwar Pujara (18) was trapped leg before wicket by spinner Adil Rashid.

“He’s very calm, he’s very organised and he has got a good sense of humour”, added Rashid, who took four wickets in India’s first innings.

Ashwin kept landing the ball in the rough patches, drawing big turn, but the problem for the bowlers was that there wasn’t much alarming turn from the middle of the pitch, which really concerns the batsmen.

Yes, they won the toss, so did not have the problem of scoreboard pressure and yes, when they came out to bat in the second innings, it was with the knowledge that they had a first innings lead.

“Well, at least we know how to draw games now”.

“The amount of work we’d done in the game to always have our noses ahead I didn’t want to give India a sniff”.

Moeen said: “It was a very good pitch”. I enjoyed batting with Rooty. “It was a challenging situation but one that we counted really well”, Kohli said. Something I’ve developed over the past few years, in global cricket, the pace is important.