England burnt through all of their reviews inside the first hour of India’s innings in the evening session of Day One in Hyderabad, leaving them with nine wickets left to take without being able to challenge the umpires’ decisions.
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Having been bowled out for 246 after electing to bat on the opening day of the series, England were met with a counter-attack from Yashasvi Jaiswal and Rohit Sharma. With the pitch offering big turn to India’s spinners, 246 seemed like it could be a competitive score, but India’s openers quickly took a huge chunk out of England’s lead in the final session.
Jaiswal hit debutant Tom Hartley, entrusted with opening the bowling by Ben Stokes, for two sixes in his first over of Test cricket. In Mark Wood’s following over, England thought they might have found an early breakthrough when Jaiswal was beaten down the leg side. Joe Root, who was fielding in the slips, was the main campaigner for the review, which was ultimately unsuccessful. The ball missed Jaiswal’s glove by a fair distance, and meant England were a review down less than three overs into the innings.
Jaiswal celebrated by pumping Hartley for two more boundaries in his second over, and India raced to 68-0 by the end of the tenth over.
Desperately needing a wicket, England thought they spied an opportunity to see the back of Rohit Sharma. Hartley bowled a flighted delivery which brought Rohit forward and turned past his outside edge. Ben Foakes took the ball comfortably, whipped off the bails and appealed. Despite the ball looking like it had comfortably missed the bat, England went for the review. It was unsurprisingly unsuccessful.
However, Rohit was out the following over, skying a ball from Jack Leach to give Stokes a simple catch. Fresh from that success, England thought they might have had two quick wickets in Hartley’s next over. Bowling to Shubman Gill, Hartley beat his inside edge and rapped him on the pads. The appeal looked more convincing than those which England reviewed, but umpire Chris Gaffaney was still unconvinced. Stokes opted to go upstairs once again, with the ball shown to have just missed Gill’s inside edge.
Despite looking like it would go on to at least clip the stumps, DRS showed the ball bouncing clean over the top of middle and off. The loss of that review left England with none left for the remainder of the innings. With India still only one wicket down at the end of the Day and having almost halved England’s first innings score, it leaves them in a difficult position going into Day Two.
