STATS HIGHLIGHTS
Follow UsA head start for India on the first day of a lengthy five match Test series is for sure a positive sign. After Joe Root won the toss on a grass top pitch, Root chose to bat first. The decision seemed to have backfired as England were all-out for a paltry total of 183.
Indian pacers bagged all the 20 wickets with Jasprit Bumrah leading the contingent with a four-wicket haul and Mohammed Shami played the second fiddle with three wickets. There were few records broken in the first day of the Test match, here are a few of those:
Kohli’s unfortunate tale of “heads or tails”
Virat Kohli is known for his unluckiness with the toss. In the seven matches he has captained in England including today, never has a won the coin flip. Not only in England, across the globe while playing against England, Kohl has won the toss only twice in 15 matches. A toss win percentage of 13.3, the worst among all Indian captains. Overall, this was the 35th time Kohli lost a toss in Tests, the most for an Indian surpassing MS Dhoni’s 34.
A struggling top order
The biggest concern for England in this series as well as the upcoming Ashes later this year, is their top two wickets. England's opening partnership this year has an average of 15.3 and the second wicket averages even lesser (14.9). On an aggregate, the first two wicket partnerships have averaged 15.1 in 34 innings. In a calendar year in which the first two wickets combined have played 25+ innings, this year’s average is an all-time low.
Rory Burns duckling tales
The year 2021 has been a tale of twists and turns for Burns. He has scored 296 runs in nine innings with a century and a half-century. However, out of those nine, there have been four such innings in which he has failed to get off the mark. In fact, in all four of those, he has been dismissed in the first over of the innings. Only Michael Atherton in 1998 had suffered more ducks (5) as an English opener in a calendar year.
Root at the summit
After playing for 8 years and 234 days, it took 366 international innings for Joe Root to become the highest run scorer for England. 22 runs behind Sir Alastair Cook’s tally of 15,737 runs at the start of this match, Root reached it with boundary in the 33rd over. He further added to his tally and accumulated 15,780 runs before his dismissal. Root has scored 8778 runs in Tests, 6109 in ODIs and 893 in T20Is.
Root’s dominance in first match of a series against India
This is the sixth series Root is playing against India in Tests and in all his first innings of the series, he has been sensational. He has had a 50+ score against India in all his first innings of the first Test in each of the six series. In these six innings, Root has a staggering average of 142.6 with two centuries and one double century.
Stuck in front far too often
Root has far too often been a prey to LBW. His indecisive footwork towards the full-length ball has been the root cause of it. In Tests since 2019, Root has been dismissed through LBW in 12 innings, which is the most among all batsmen. It's not only Root, among the top five candidates of LBW in the aforementioned time, four are English players. Behind the skipper’s tally of 12, Dom Sibley is at second with nine, then Jonny Bairstow and Roston Chase shared with eight and Burns at joint fourth with seven.
Yet another innings with four ducks
Burns was not the only batsman to be dismissed for a duck. Dan Lawrence at number six and Jos Buttler at number seven also suffered a similar fate. Ollie Robinson added to the cause and took the tally to four ducks in an innings. This was only the second instance of four English batsmen suffering ducks. The other one came in their recent tour of India in the second innings of the third Test match in Ahmedabad in 2021.
