England surprised by attacking intent of India openers

NewsBut batter insists tourists’ total of 246 is “an above-par score”

England were not expecting Yashasvi Jaiswal and Rohit Sharma, India’s openers, to play with the attacking intent that they did on the first evening of the first Test in Hyderabad. That is according to Ben Duckett, who insisted that England’s total of 246 was “an above-par score” after nine wickets fell to spin across the opening day of the five-match series.

“It’s spinning quite a lot on day one,” Duckett told talkSPORT. “We could have easily had three or four [wickets] there tonight and it could have been very different. The way they played at the top was quite positive, and that’s fair play to them. I don’t think we necessarily thought they were going to come out and play like that, but Stokesy [Ben Stokes] got us to what we think was an above-par score.

“It was quite a good day. I thought we were pretty happy there, getting bowled out for what we were. I thought Stokesy was superb. We found it pretty tricky and I think, to be honest, they played well and really positively tonight. It’s tough work against that attack, and I thought we grafted really well today… when the ball is spinning like that on day one, it can be quite tough.”

Jaiswal and Rohit put on 80 for the first wicket in 12.2 overs before Jack Leach took England’s only wicket of the first day, when Rohit was caught by a back-pedalling Stokes at mid-on. Jaiswal was unbeaten at stumps after reaching 76 off 70 balls, with Shubman Gill playing more watchfully from No. 3 to finish 14 not out.

Duckett suggested that India’s decision to attack was informed by a belief that the pitch will deteriorate as the game wears on. “You have to pay credit to them: they played really well tonight and were very attacking, which is positive,” he told reporters. “They don’t always go about it like that, so to go about it that way shows that they probably think that pitch is going to get quite a bit worse.”

England lost wickets in clusters during their innings, with Duckett’s own dismissal – lbw to R Ashwin for 35 – quickly followed by Ollie Pope and Zak Crawley falling to spin. “That’s going to happen out here, and that’s something that we’ll have good belief in when we’re bowling,” Duckett said. “We could easily take three or four [wickets] tomorrow morning for 10 runs.

“It feels like a tricky pitch to start on. Shubman there, we could have had him there. It looked like a dead lbw [when he was struck on the pad by Tom Hartley on 1] and somehow, it’s bouncing over the stumps. It’s one of those things. We’ll stick to our mantra and that’s taking wickets and looking to be positive. Hopefully that will happen for us as well.”

On Jaiswal, who is playing against England for the first time in his international career, Duckett said: “I think he played beautifully. These are home conditions [for India] and you’d expect nothing less of their lads than to play well out here. Even the wicket to get Rohit, they were looking quite set with those two and then that happened.

“Fingers crossed, if moments like that happen tomorrow, we can stick three or four [wickets] on them and you never know. If we can keep them to around our score, or even a little bit of a lead, I think we’re right in the game.”