Dharamshala, March 7: The fragility of England batters against high-quality spin was exposed once again before India showed them how to bat on a flat track by cruising to 135 for one at stumps on day one of the fifth and final Test here on Thursday.
Opting to bat, England were all at sea against the mastery of left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav whose fourth five-wicket haul in Tests allowed India to bowl out the visitors for 218 in their first innings shortly after tea.
Playing his 100th Test, R Ashwin cleaned up the tail with four wickets while Ravindra Jadeja took one. Contrary to expectations, all 10 wickets went to the spinners at the scenic HPCA Stadium and the last seven batsmen fell while adding only 43 runs.
India came out to bat in bright sunshine and Rohit Sharma (52 batting off 83 balls) and Yashasvi Jaiswal (57 off 58b) put the hosts in firm control with a 104-run stand. India reached 135 for one in 30 overs at close. Shubman Gill (26 off 39b) was batting alongside Rohit.It was the highest opening stand of this series for India and was broken when Jaiswal got a bit carried away to be stumped off Shoaib Bashir after collecting back-to-back boundaries.
The southpaw’s pre-meditated charge down the ground came soon after he became only the second Indian to amass 700 runs in a series after the legendary Sunil Gavaskar, who achieved the feat twice against the West Indies in 1971 and 1978-79.
The ball did not do much for the England pacers and spinners compared to their Indian counterparts.
Jaiswal was watchful to start with and waited for the spinners to be in operation. He put Bashir to sword in his very first over by dispatching him for three sixes into the stands, two of them over extra cover.The Indian skipper, at the other end, too played confidently. He made his intentions clear by pulling a 150kmph rising delivery off Mark Wood over fine leg for six in the fourth over of the innings.
His second maximum came off spinner Tom Hartley in the cow corner region.However, India’s march to command started in the second session when they reduced the visitors to 194 for eight at tea as Kuldeep engineered a middle-order collapse that saw England lose three wickets for no run.All of a sudden England found themselves reeling at 175 for six from three down on the same score.
England lost six wickets in the middle session for 94 runs.
Kuldeep could have got rid of Zak Crawley (79 off 108) on the second ball after lunch break but India opted against DRS for a catch. (PTI)
