England’s debutant left-arm spinner Tom Hartley stepped up with the ball on Day 4 of their Test series opener against India at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad. He received a lot of criticism for his ordinary bowling in India’s first innings. However, he bounced back well, bagging a stunning seven-wicket haul in the second innings as well.

Speaking about his performance at the post-match presentation, Tom Hartley said: “It’s unbelievable, will not sink in for a while to be honest. I don’t think there was a lot of help, I had to keep a cool head. It was a tough one (on the first innings bowling effort), it didn’t spin as much as I thought, and I had a chat with Stokes, McCullum and the team management. The dressing room has great vibes, it’s a fantastic dressing room, one of the best. It’s just the Stokes way, just bowl into the surface and we came out on top today.”

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Tom Hartley did well with a valuable contribution with the bat, scoring 34 runs on the fourth day. He shared that spending time at the crease helped him get a better understanding of the pitch as well. He also added that he changed his plans after seeing the likes of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja bowl in these conditions as well.

“Getting a few runs always helps (on his second innings batting effort), it also helped me get to know about the pitch a lot more. Just unbelievable to be honest. I didn’t have to bowl as fast as I thought (in the first innings), watching Ash and Jadeja, we knew we could take some time – change the length and the trajectory when we bowled for the second time,” Tom Hartley concluded.