While the English opener Alastair Cook has set for a memorable farewell for himself with a brilliant half-century knock, Indian bowlers provided another superb comeback for the Indian cricket team in the last session of the first day of the fifth and final Test of the series at The Oval (London).
English skipper Joe Root decided to bat first after winning the toss on Friday morning. While England remained unchanged in this game which is the English opener Alastair Cook’s final international cricket match too, Indian skipper Virat Kohli made a total of two changes in their playing XI as Ravindra Jadeja and the debutant Hanuma Vihari replaced Ravichandran Ashwin and Hardik Pandya.
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English openers Alastair Cook and Keaton Jennings provided a good start as they put a 60-run partnership, the joint highest opening partnership in this Test series (other twice for India). After Jennings was dismissed by the comeback Indian cricketer Ravindra Jadeja for 23 runs, Moeen Ali supported Cook to play a long innings in his final Test match.
The first two sessions were slow but mostly ran for England as the hosts were 123/1 at the tea. In that time, Cook already completed his half-century which he made in 139 balls.
However, the third session went for Indian cricket team once that 73-run second-wicket partnership was broken. Cook was dismissed on 71 runs off 190 balls with eight fours and the skipper Joe Root & the wicketkeeper-batsman Jonny Bairstow quickly followed him without opening their respective accounts.
After the 37-run partnership for the fifth-wicket between Moeen Ali and Ben Stokes, Stokes lost his wicket on just 11 runs. Soon, Moeen Ali (50 off 170 balls) lost his wicket just after completing his half-century while Sam Curran followed him in the same over for another duck.
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At the stumps on day one, while England was batting on 198/7, Jos Buttler (11*) was batting with Adil Rashid (4*).
Among the Indian bowlers, the experienced pacer Ishant Sharma (3/28) picked up three wickets while another pacer Jasprit Bumrah (2/41) and the left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja (2/57) bagged two wickets each.
Some important stats of day 1 of The Oval Test between England and India
- English cricketer Alastair Cook is playing his 30th Test match against India. Playing this Test match, Cook becomes the new record holder to play most number of Test matches by a player against India. He surpassed former Australian cricketer Ricky Ponting who had played 29 Tests against India.
- Playing his last international cricket match, English opener Alastair Cook scored 71 runs in the first innings. During his debutant Test match, Cook scored 60 and 104* and that was against India at Nagpur in 2006. Cook becomes the second English batsman (after George Gunn) and 14th overall batsman to play at least three 50+ innings in the debutant and final career Test together.
- England opener Alastair Cook scored 71 runs in the first innings. It is the first 50+ score by an opener in the ongoing five-match Test series.
- Experienced England opener Alastair Cook completed his 1,000 Test runs against India at home and has scored 1,049 Test runs against India at home. He is only the second England batsman to score 1,000 or more Test runs against India at home. Graham Gooch is on top of this list with 1,134 Test runs against India at home.
- At the stumps on day one, Indian pacer Ishant Sharma has picked up a total of 43 Test wickets on the English soil. Currently, he is the joint most wicket-taker as an Indian bowler on the English soil as former pace bowling all-rounder Kapil Dev had also picked up 43 Test wickets on the English soil.
