India ended the opening day of the first Test against England on top. The match is being played at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad and the surface did offer turn but not a significant one as the visitors did well to score 246 runs before getting bowled out in the first innings. For the most parts of the day, Ben Stokes was spot on – calling it correctly at the toss and then smashing 70 runs with the bat.
But when his side came out to defend the total, the England skipper was extremely poor especially when it came to taking DRS. The visitors burnt all their reviews in just 13.2 overs of the innings in search for wickets. With this, Stokes became the captain to burn all his reviews at the earliest ever in a Test innings. The earlier record was with Jason Holder who had burnt all the reviews in 16.2 overs against England in Manchester in 2020. Oddly, Stokes trusted his teammates on every occasion and each time, it turned out that England were on the wrong end of the decision.
Perhaps, the first two DRS decisions were so poor from the tourists. They first challenged the on-field umpire’s decision in the third over hoping for Yashasvi Jaiswal to have gloved the ball down the leg-side. There was a clear gap between the ball and the glove and then in the 12th over, Stokes attempted to get the wicket of Rohit Sharma.
It was an extremely silly decision as the batter had missed a turning delivery that went past the bat. The close-in fielders showed some excitement and Ben Stokes went for the review in a hope that the debutant Tom Hartley gets an early wicket. But there was no edge and one can say England were unlucky not to get Shubman Gill out LBW as the ball-tracking surprisingly showed the ball to be going over the stumps when it looked clearly out on the replays.
The incident happened in the 14th over of the innings and England were left with no reviews by then. With India sitting pretty at 119/1, England now will have to depend on the umpires to get the decisions in their favour and might chase the leather on the second day having posted only 246 runs in their first innings.