India’s pace bowlers picked up from where they had left off at Trent Bridge to rattle England on the opening day of the fourth Test.
Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami and Ishant Sharma were at it again, bowling with pace, skill and control and generating enormous swing, as the home team's batting simply came unstuck. At tea at the Ageas Bowl on Thursday, England was 139 for six.
In the morning, Joe Root won the toss for the fourth time this series, and elected to bat. Kohli, for the first time in his captaincy — 39 Tests old now — named an unchanged team. It turned out to be a good toss for India to lose.
Jasprit Bumrah struck in his second over, trapping Keaton Jennings leg-before with a big in-swinger. It was a delivery the left-hander — used to the ball angled across him — had not expected. Jennings left the ball alone, but it swung back in and left him looking hopelessly inept.
Struggle continues
Joe Root’s struggles continued. He could have been out on two, when an in-dipper from Bumrah pinned him in front. Bruce Oxenford, the umpire, ruled Root not out and when a confident India reviewed, it turned out that the bowler had over-stepped. The ball, it emerged, would have crashed into middle and leg-stumps.
It did not come to matter, for, Root added only two more to his score before Ishant dismissed him with a similar giant in-swinger. After his 80 in the first innings of the first Test, the England captain now has scores of 14, 19, 16, 13 and 4.
Root’s exit brought Jonny Bairstow, newly promoted to No. 4, to the crease.
The Yorkshireman was squared up by Bumrah with a peach of a delivery in the first over after the drinks break and he edged behind for six.
Things went from bad to worse when Alastair Cook, whose poor form has lasted so long now that it ought to be seen as irreversible decline, tried to steer
Hardik Pandya through third man and ended up handing Kohli a low catch at third slip.
At lunch England was 57 for four, and in desperate need of a big partnership.
Relentless attack
Ben Stokes looked the best of the home side’s batsmen for a while, as he and Jos Buttler added 31 runs for the fifth wicket.
But this is a strong, relentless bowling attack; batsmen have no respite, simply no room for error.
Mohammed Shami, who had come on second-change earlier and bowled only four overs in the first session, struck early in the second. He pitched the ball up to Buttler despite having been driven through the covers.
The batsman duly pushed at one delivery with hard hands and nicked to third slip.
Not long after, Shami accounted for Stokes too, going around the wicket to catch him on the crease with a ball that tailed-in.
Shami excellent
India’s bowlers had simply been too good. Shami, who was excellent in the afternoon, bowled a spell of 8-1-25-2 after lunch.
At 86 for six, England looked in dire trouble, but Moeen Ali and Sam Curran stitched together a composed partnership for the seventh wicket. At tea, their stand — unbroken — was worth 53.
England had mounted something of a recovery but there was still a lot of work to be done.
