By the time the curtains was drawn on the day when the clock struck 16:30 IST, India had a smile on their face with their decent performance making a head-start into the first game of the series. India's can get a good day's sleep after hard work while scoring 323 runs with six wickets in hand. Virender Sehwag had scored a quick century while maintaining a perfect strike rate as he was dismissed at 117. Gambhir, Gautam was however dismissed a few runs shy of a half ton early into the game.
While performances from Sachin Tendulkar, and middle-order batsman Virat Kohli leave much room to be desired, young star Cheteshwar Pujara had a stunning start and is looking very positively at his second century in Test Matches. He is still batting at 98 while taking his own sweet time to torment the bowlers of England. On the other end of the pitch is Yuvraj Singh who has also made a decent contribution of 24 runs in a short time.
England's bowling was below par in the opening session but they had recovered after the lunch session locking down the Indian players to extremely few runs per over. Though most other bowlers struggled to make a break, Swann was an intimidating opponent who had run through the Indian batsmen like a knife through butter. He successfully managed to pocked all four wickets on the first day.
Poor fielding had cost the visitors dearly. A few misfields and dropped catches have favored India to still hold onto the reins of the game. Bresnan had been the most expensive bowler giving away runs at a highly uneconomical rate. Swann has shown his aggressive side to the Indians who have been wary facing his bowling thereafter. Patel has also managed to tighten the latches on the Indian team.
The Indian team managed to cross the 300 mark in a little over 500 balls and by the end of 90 overs, as the umpires pocketed the bails, India waits at 323/4. The Day 2 is going to be far more interesting with Pujara at 98, and the bowlers tying down the players to lower scores per over. Watch this space for more updates on the game.
(AW- Anil)
