Ajinkya Rahane-Virat Kohli partnership in first innings

India was put into bat by Joe Root in what would remain a debatable decision for few days to come. The Indian openers Shikhar Dhawan and KL Rahul forged a spirited partnership of 60 runs and gave India a very good start to be built upon.

This work of building upon that start was done by Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane who forged a brilliant 159-run partnership for the fourth wicket. Their partnership took India towards their primary goal of scoring 300 runs in the first innings.

Ajinkya Rahane scored 81 in 131 runs and Virat Kohli scored 97 in 152 balls, narrowly missing a hundred. But the captain and the vice-captain of the team made sure that the Indian bowlers had a substantial total to back them.