NEWS
Follow UsIndia ended Day One of the first Test against England on top, finishing on 119 for 1, trailing the opponents by another 127 runs with nine wickets in hand. That is thanks to an attacking innings by Yashasvi Jaiswal, who scored an unbeaten 76 off just 70 deliveries.
This after India bowled England out for 246, with the spinners accounting for eight wickets. Ravichandran Ashwin, who finished with figures of 3 for 68, lavished high praise on Jaiswal, saying that his approach reminds him of Rishabh Pant.
"That's the beauty of playing this sport at this level. Somebody breaks through the system, doesn't have any excess baggage, had a great time in the IPL, had a wonderful start to his first-class cricket. He's literally not put a foot wrong. He's walked into Test cricket, he's taken it like a fish to water," Ashwin said when asked about Jaiswal's fearless approach.
"His carefree approach is enabling him to play some wonderful shots. I am quite enjoying it. I get a feeling sometimes when he's batting, I am seeing Rishabh Pant there. Both of them bat similarly to the left-arm spinner. Jaiswal has got a lot of shots, his range is pretty wide, and the fearless approach at the moment is serving him really well."
Ashwin also reckons England scored about 30-40 runs more than they would have liked, but the way Rohit Sharma (24) and Jaiswal started things off eased a bit of pressure.
"240 was a very very good competitive total I thought. When we left the field, I was thinking probably 30-40 runs more than what we would have liked," Ashwin who is now seven away from 500 Test wickets, said.
"The start that Jaiswal and Rohit gave us is making us breathe a little easy. Someone going on and making a hundred tomorrow will put us in the driver's seat."
