It was a dream debut for England left-arm spinner Tom Hartley as he took 7 wickets in the first IND vs ENG Test match in Hyderabad. Indian batsman KS Bharat became the fifth victim of him and was dismissed for 28 runs off 59 balls. On the first ball of 62, when a long ball from Hartley was pitched on the line of stumps and hit his off stump. Bharat was taken aback when the ball went past his defense and he missed the off stump.
Soon after KS Bharat’s dismissal, Ravichandran Ashwin became Tom Hartley’s sixth victim and was dismissed after scoring 28 runs. India were nine down for a score of 177 runs, and then the spinner picked one more wicket as England registered a famous victory against the Asian giants.
Watch: KS Bharat left baffled by Tom Hartley’s brilliant delivery
A fiftieth 🖐 on debut
Tom hardly makes a mistake as he takes the visitors to the brink of victory 🎉#INDvsENG #IDFCFirstBankTestSeries #JioCinemaSports #BazBowled pic.twitter.com/toBszaZ8yM
– JioCinema (@JioCinema) January 28, 2024
India started well as openers Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal added 42 runs for the first wicket. However, Jaiswal was dismissed for 15 runs and was soon followed by Shubman Gill, who wasted another one and returned to the dressing room after scoring a duck.
Indian batsmen KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma added 21 runs for the third wicket, but in an attempt to attack, Rohit was dismissed after scoring 39 runs off 58 balls. Axar Patel and KL Rahul didn’t do much either, leaving the field with 17 and 22 runs respectively. After failing once again, Shreyas Iyer left the field after scoring 13 runs.
At last, Tom Hartley concluded the Indian innings with 202 runs and finished the match by picking up 9 wickets.
Ollie Pope, an England batsman, put the Indian team on the back foot with a brilliant 196 run innings that also brought his team back into the game. After being dismissed by Indian wicketkeeper KL Rahul for 186 runs, Pope failed to capitalize on the missed opportunity and failed to reach his double century.
To become the fourth batsman to accumulate the most runs by a visiting batsman in the second innings, Ollie Pope surpassed Pakistan opener Saeed Anwar. Andy Flower, the legendary Zimbabwe batsman, tops the list with 232* runs against India.
Throughout the first innings, England’s batting order struggled mightily and managed 246 runs. The Indian spinners destroyed the backbone of the English batting line-up with eight wickets between them.
England were clearly on the defensive after India’s impressive batting performance in the first innings, but it was Ollie Pope who turned things around for his team.
England’s victory in the first Test was a major setback for the Indian team as it was the first time after 12 years that India had lost a Test match in Hyderabad.
The match will also have a profound effect on the ICC World Test Championship 2023-25 standings, in which the Indian cricket team has moved to fifth position while England is at eighth.
The second Test match of the series will be played from February 2 at the Dr. YS Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium, Visakhapatnam.