India vs England 2021, 4th Test: Day 1 - Indian Spinners Again Dominate On The Opening Day

Indian bowlers, more specifically the spinners, have continued their dominations over the visitors England batting line-up as the hosts ended the opening day of the final game of this Test series with the upper hand.

England Test captain Joe Root chose to bat first after winning the toss. However, the visitors only managed to score 205 runs before losing their all wickets. At the stumps of the day, the hosts scored 24/1 as they are still trailing by 181 runs.

India vs England 2021, 4th Test: Day 1 – Axar Patel and Ravichandran Ashwin maintained their best form

India got a perfect start as the local boy Axar Patel dismissed both the English openers very early as Dom Sibley (2) and Zak Crawley (9) failed to reach the double-digit scores.

In the 13th over of the match, pacer Mohammed Siraj took the big wicket of England captain Joe Root for 5 runs as the visitors were struggling on 30/3. But then Jonny Bairstow and Ben Stokes controlled the game very well as England didn’t lose any further wicket at lunch where they scored 74/3.

But Siraj provided the breakthrough in the fourth over of the second session as he trapped Bairstow for lbw who scored 28 runs and had the 48 runs partnership with Stokes.

Then Stokes and Ollie Pope put the crucial 43 runs partnership for the fifth wicket where Stokes completed his fifty in 114 balls. But soon after his half-century, Washington Sundar dismissed him as Stokes scored 55 off 121 balls (6 fours and 2 sixes).

Then Ollie Pope and Dan Lawrence tried to handle the situation. While they were fighting very hard, England scored 144/5 at tea break.

Pope and Lawrence had 45 runs partnership for the sixth wicket but the off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin broke that partnership by dismissing Pope (29), which was also his first wicket of the match. Ashwin and Axar Patel wrapped up the visiting batting line-up in style while Lawrence fought hard and scored 46 runs off 74 balls (6 fours) before he was stumped out in Axar’s over.

Axar finished that innings with the bowling figures of 26-7-68-4. Meanwhile, Ashwin had bowling figures of 19.5-4-47-3.

On the very third ball of the next innings, James Anderson dismissed the Indian opener Shubman Gill for a duck. However, another opener Rohit Sharma (8*) and Cheteshwar Pujara (15*) assured no further trouble for the hosts in that late moment of the opening day.

At the end of day one, English pacer James Anderson had bowling figures of 5-5-0-1.

Brief Scores: England – 205 (Ben Stokes 55, Dan Lawrence 46; Axar Patel 4/68)

India – 24/1 (Cheteshwar Pujara 15*, Rohit Sharma 8*; James Anderson 1/0)

Latest Status (at the stumps of day 1) – India are trailing by 181 runs