London: England batsmen played cautiously to reach 127 for two against India at tea on the opening day of the historic first cricket Test at the Lord’s here on Thursday.
Bad light forced early tea after 49.2 overs were being played and eventually play was suspended for the day.
In-form batsman Jonathan Trott survived a couple of chances to remain unbeaten on 58 while Kevin Pietersen, who looked pretty uncomfortable against the swing of Zaheer Khan and Praveen Kumar, scratched his way to 22.
The duo put on 65 runs for the undefeated third wicket stand. Trott has hit eight boundaries in his 104-ball knock.
There was some bad news for India as pace spearhead Zaheer, who was the pick of the bowlers, left midway through his 14th over after pulling a hamstring. However later on team sources confirmed that pace spearhead Zaheer Khan is only suffering from cramps.
Zaheer, who had removed both openers Alastair Cook (12) and skipper Andrew Strauss (22), was in considerable pain when he left the field. It was Praveen who completed the over.
Although England batsmen never looked in any tearing hurry to score the runs, the Indian seamers lacked incisiveness despite getting considerable amount of movement.
After removing Cook with a delivery that came back to wrap him on pads, Zaheer again provided the breakthrough in the post-lunch session dismissing Strauss.
Trott, who reached his seventh Test half century in 107 balls, was dropped on eight and 32 with Rahul Dravid being the guilty party on both occasions. While Harbhajan Singh was the bowler during the first dropped chance, it was Zaheer who squared up Trott during the second time. (PTI)
