England seemed in trouble at one stage when India took a 190-run lead in the first innings in the recent first Test in Hyderabad. But in the end, the visitors had an amazing batting and bowling performance in the second innings to win the Test and go 1-0 up in the 5-match series.
Resuming their innings on 316/6 on day 4, England proceeded to make 420 runs in their second innings. Ollie Pope top-scored with 196 runs, while Jasprit Bumrah took 4 wickets for India. With this, India was set a target of 231 runs to win.
India started poorly as Yashasvi Jaiswal prodded tentatively, losing his wicket to Tom Hartley for 15 runs. Shubman Gill followed 2 balls later for a duck, as his poor run of form in Tests continued. Rohit Sharma looked good for his 39, but Hartley got his wicket as well.
KL Rahul (22) and Akshar Patel (17) had a small partnership that took India to 95/3, but after tea, once Akshar fell to Hartley as well, India's batters panicked and went into a shell. The ball turned and kept low as batters found it tough to score runs freely.
Ben Stokes captained amazingly, placing aggressive fields that stopped runs and gave wickets to his bowlers. A ray of hope was a fifty-plus partnership between KS Bharat (28) and R Ashwin (28). But once they got out, it was a matter of time, before England wrapped the India innings for 202 runs.
England won by 28 runs and went 1-0 up in the five-Test series. Tom Hartley starred with figures of 7/62, with 9 wickets on his Test debut. But it was Ollie Pope who won the Player of the Match for his brilliant knock of 196 in England's second innings.
The second Test will be played from February 2 onwards in Vishakhapatnam.
The cricket fraternity was all praises for England for their win after being in trouble at the start on social media.
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