The first test between India and England kicked off on Thursday morning at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad. It started with English captain Ben Stokes winning the toss and deciding to bat first. That decision looked pretty good in the first ten overs.
The visitors didn’t lose a wicket in the first ten, and the seamers were pretty easy to play. But as the spin was introduced, the match turned on its head. Both English openers added a good partnership of 55 runs in 11.5 overs, and Ravi Ashwin provided the first breakthrough.
That wicket brought up two more wickets, and from 55/0, England were at 60/3. Then Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root added 61 runs for the fourth wicket. Bairstow got out for 37 runs, and it opened the floodgate. England lost seven wickets for 155 runs.
However, at the start, when England won the toss, former English star Kevin Pietersen was confident that England could do well with the bat. He tweeted, “England bat. 450/9 declared today.?” But in the span of two sessions, England looked out of sorts. He retweeted, “Bloody hell!!!! Might be a two day game!”
However, former Indian opener Wasim Jaffer, who is quite active on social media, trolled Pietersen. He shared the screenshot of Pietersen’s tweet and tweeted, “Dinesh Karthik will translate this one for you, Kevin Pietersen.” England have yet to win a test series in India since 2012–23. In the first inning, they got all out for just 246 runs in 64.3 overs.
.@DineshKarthik will translate this one for you @KP24 😅 #INDvENG pic.twitter.com/3PSpy2rWlw
— Wasim Jaffer (@WasimJaffer14) January 25, 2024
The situation was looking even worse, but the English skipper made sure that they would cross the 250-run mark. Stokes played a captain’s knock of 70 off 88 balls, with six fours and three sixes, to take the score to a competitive mark. England have picked up three specialist spinners and one pacer. It will be interesting to see how they will come out bowling for the Indian team.
