After a thrilling contest, England beat India by 31 runs to pick up a big win over at Edgbaston in the first Test.
After a thrilling contest, England defeated India by 31 runs to win the first Test at Edgbaston. Needing 5 wickets to win on the 4th day, England kicked off strongly with James Anderson dismissing Dinesh Karthikin the first over. After Karthik’s dismissal, skipper Virat Kohli snuck around with allrounder Hardik Pandya to build a partnership. But Ben Stokes ended Kohli’s resistance for 51 and dismissed Mohammed Shami in the same over. Adil Rashid dismissed Ishant Sharma for 11 with a googly. Stokes returned to dismiss Hardik Pandya for 31 to pick up the final wicket and the win for his country. He finished with figures of 4/40 as England took a 1-0 lead in the 5-match series.
The script of the first Test kept on changing, with both teams getting opportunities to take advantage. England started well with the bat on the first day, getting on to 216/3 with skipper Joe Root and wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow scoring fifties each. Kohli ran out Root for 80, which prompted England to lose six wickets for 69 runs in the final session. With Ashwin taking four wickets, the visitors bowled out the hosts for 287.
In reply, India got off to a strong start with Murali Vijay and Shikhar Dhawanscoring a 50-run partnership. But wickets started to tumble in quick succession, and India found themselves in a spot of bother. The Indian skipper, once again, led the resistance and scored 149 runs, reducing the gap between the two teams by just 13 runs.
Ishant Sharma’s fifer helped India in bowling out England for 180, with a total lead of 193 runs. The Joe Root-led side found themselves in a spot of bother at one stage, with the score of 87/7. But Sam Curran’s 65-ball 63 saw them gaining a competitive total before being bowled out.
England took five wickets before stumps on Day 3 to put India, once again in a precarious position on the 4th day. With just 5 wickets needed to win the match on Day 4, England manage to clean up India’s tail quickly to register a morale-boosting victory.