On the second day of the first Test in Hyderabad, England’s bowlers were fighting to stay in the match as India started to gain a commanding lead.
By tea time, the hosts had overcome their 127-run deficit from the previous night and were leading 63 on 309 for five, giving their opponents a mountain to climb.
It might have been worse for England, whose breakthroughs were mostly the result of a few overly aggressive strokes, as their limitations in sub-continental conditions were shown.
Debutant Tom Hartley claimed two wickets, coming back from a tough opening day to remove top scorer KL Rahul (86) and Shubman Gill, while Joe Root was gratified to score with the morning’s fourth ball.
Yashasvi Jaiswal, who opened the innings with explosiveness, gave England a lot of problems on Thursday night. He got into Hartley and thrashed his way to 76 at nearly a run-a-ball, but he only managed to add four runs before falling to Root’s fourth delivery of the day, which was a caught-and-bowled opportunity off the inside edge.
Ben Stokes may have regretted waiting so long to test his theory, since he had considered bowling first against Root on the eve of the series, believing his off-breaks would pose a threat to the left-hander.
When Root had Rahul nicking two balls later on zero, things almost went even better, but Ben Foakes failed to make a fantastic catch behind the wickets. The fact that Root was England’s most reliable threat not only reflected poorly on his fellow spinners but also demonstrated his own inventiveness.
Stokes was keen to avoid overprotecting the 24-year-old following his past setbacks, so he started at the opposite end and Hartley replied with a tighter spell. Having lost 63 in his opening nine overs, he managed to finish the same amount of overs for just thirty. Above all, he made his account available.
Ben Duckett was taken out at midwicket by Gill, who never really got going in his 23. Gill flicked Hartley off his leg stump. Emotional with relief mixed with celebration, the left-armer bolted off.
After scoring 103 in the first session, India went into lunch 24 down, with Rahul scoring a fine half-century prior to the break.
Lead spinner Jack Leach was limited to two overs in the morning, raising doubts about his health, but in the afternoon he took on a greater portion of the workload. But Rahul struck two sixes off leg-spinner Rehan Ahmed to put India ahead, while England struggled to find any demons on the pitch.
Although England gave too many boundary balls, the teenager was not the only one to serve up the odd freebie. The second was a terrible pull down. When Shreyas Iyer attempted a slog-sweep towards the stands and was unable to clear Hartley, Ahmed did manage to get on the scoreboard, holing out for 35.
Rahul committed the most recent careless mistake when he had a century up for grabs, skying an easy long-hop from Hartley into Ahmed’s hands when he could have hit it anywhere.
After reaching 45 not out at tea, Ravindra Jadeja made sure that India did not let their momentum slide by hammering sixes from Leach and Hartley.
