Yashasvi Jaiswal’s sensational knock kept India in a comfortable position at the of Day 1 of the second Test match against England on Friday. Jaiswal registered his highest score in red-ball cricket by smashing an unbeaten 179 but England made a late comeback with a couple of wickets to restrict the hosts to 336/6.
After a shock loss in the first match, India made three changes to their playing eleven with uncapped Rajat Patidar making his Test debut ahead of Sarfaraz Khan. Mukesh Kumar and Kuldeep Yadav also came into the team for the hosts while England recalled veteran James Anderson and gave a debut to young spinner Shoaib Bashir.
Rohit Sharma won the toss and elected to bat first at Visakhapatnam’s Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium. Rohit and Yashasvi added 40 runs for the opening wicket with the former struggling to find momentum for the quick runs.
Debutant Bashir dismissed Rohit on 14 runs to give England a breakthrough they needed. Yashasvi kept the runs flowing from one end but India kept losing wickets from one end. The likes of Shubman Gil land Shreyas Iyer struggled for big scores despite getting a fine start once again.
Yashasvi added a 49-run stand for the second wicket with Gill and then an impressive 90 runs with Iyer for the third wicket. Rajat Patidar impressed on his Test debut by scoring 32 runs off 72 before getting bowled out by Rehan Ahmed in an unfortunate manner.
India seemed in complete total control going into the last session but England managed to pull three big wickets after Tea to balance the game a little bit. Jaiswal remained unbeaten on 179 off 257 balls with Ravichandran Ashwin at the other end when umpires called stumps on Day 1 after 93 overs of play.
India Playing XI: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Shreyas Iyer, Rajat Patidar, Srikar Bharat (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mukesh Kumar
England Playing XI: Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes (c), Ben Foakes (wk), Rehan Ahmed, Tom Hartley, Shoaib Bashir, James Anderson