England tour of India, Jan 25 - March 11

[Durhamfootman]

93 overs in the day

[sussexpob]

Par score of 500 +?? England's day??

I think I am watching a different test match, because just before lunch on Day 1 with a part time spinner with a test average of 45 on, the ball coughed out a footmark and spun about a metre from a good length, and at that point the dred of knowing you have to bat last against two Indian spinners on a pitch already showing some big turn ... not that confident of scoring 500, lets just say that.

Personally I thought there was signs from ball one that the pitch has uneven bounce in it. Anderson got a lot of seam movement early on, and also got some balls to bounce off the pitch. At one stage he bowled Sharma a ball back of length that seamed and bounced into his ribs, then next over bowled the same delivery to the left hander, and the ball bounced a lot less, to the point I thought it was a slower ball, but the speedo read 132, so it was just the ball dying off the pitch. The ball he dished out to Gill for his wicket bounced a little more than normal, and clearly seamed away from the batter.

Also with the spinners, there are signs of the odd ball turning big, but also uneven bounce. The score flatters England's spinners quite a bit, because they dished up some filth today.... but the odd ball just comes off this pitch different. Iyer for instance got out to an underedge from a ball that clearly didn't bounce at all, it just skidded low of the surface. Then not long after Jaiswal edged one to Root at slip (can call it a drop or missed chance, but its flew like a tracer bullet....if he takes that, its a mega catch), but that time the ball is a similar length again, but just gets big on Jaiswal. It can be difficult to bat when a pitch reacts like this, because I don't think Iyer or Jaiswal do that much wrong. If the ball bounces like you expect, they probably crush a poor ball pitched too short to the boundary, but Iyer ends up swiping at air where a ball should be, and Jaiswal gets cramped and cant keep the ball down once he gets in position.

I reckon by day 3-4, the ball is going to be spinning and spitting all over the place.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Players saying the pitch started damp, so there was movement while it dried out, but is batting better now.

[sussexpob]

Jimmy Anderson's bowling is worthy of particular praise. His stats do not reflect in anyway the quality of his bowling this morning, but it was top draw, and a real delight to have watched it (and sadly one of the few times left to appreciate it, no doubt). There will have been days in his career he picked up 5-6-7 wickets bowling 10% of the quality he served up today, he really deserved a few more wickets. Just an absolute masterclass of seam bowling in a couple of spells, continually beating the bat....

Also worthy of mention is the dye job..... hes gone back to 2003 and the coloured streak.... you arent 20 Ando, grow old gracefully!!

[Arthur Crabtree]

England continue to chip away. 396 all out.

And Jimmy the Saint justifying his recall.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Duckett thrashes his way to an early dismissal, but not a terrible start.

[Durhamfootman]

396 feels to me like a decent result for England.

I guess we'll have a better idea of whether that's the case by the end of today's play

[Arthur Crabtree]

Crawley fails to convert a start. But England still going along ok

[Arthur Crabtree]

Root fails again. Starting to look like a tricky situation.

[meninblue]

Feels like gone are the days that Indian fans can see team score 500 to 600 and still be in position to declare with couple of wickets left or all out. The current lineup as team clearly is unable to perform like the previous great batting lineup we had.

Dissapointing to see a score of below 400 yet again. Cant even bat 120 overs. 150 and more overs seems like a skill lost by this generation of Indian batters.

Luckily we have won the toss and that may help to cover this pathetic show of batting where nobody except Yashasvi could make even decent test score.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Looks like plenty though.

[sussexpob]

Exceptional spell from Bumrah going in here

[Durhamfootman]

oh dear

middle order collapse. England hopes are pinned on Stokes again

[Durhamfootman]

every time I look at the scorecard another wicket has fallen

I'll stop looking at the scorecard

[sussexpob]

Stokes has just been dropped, which is usually the start of every stokes classic innings, so watch this space....

Just hit a 6 as I type this...