Keeping up with the music theme; All Izz Well which is a song from the movie 3 Idiots perfectly sums today’s play. England will be ecstatic with their performance. India needs the song to pull them out of bed and attempt to take control. Before I go on with the cricket; just have a listen to the song. It has English subtitles. The movie is based on Chethan Bhagat’s book Five Point Something which I highly recommend.

For some reason, I can so visualise the Indian team doing something like that to cool off.

Now coming to the fun part. Thirty-Three overs were bowled today and that is all that was needed to bowl India out. James Anderson made the ball talk. I have to applaud Root for having six slips. Initially, they did drop catches but they literally made up for it the very next ball. Towards the end of the day, the guys at slip were well placed and seemed more at ease with their placement. Today was the James Anderson show. On a day when everyone bowled extremely well, Jimmy Anderson stood head and shoulders over the rest. The ball was doing more than enough for not needing Rashid to bowl. The rain breaks helped the English bowlers too.

I must say that I was impressed by Ollie Pope. Sitting in the changing room waiting for the game to start would be difficult and any normal person would have probably taken a shy at the stumps. Instead, he simply ran back to the wicket and broke the stumps. The more important thing was Anderson telling him to calm down when Kohli left Pujara stranded. Sam Curran did well too. The wicket he took was one that any veteran fast bowler will be proud of.

In my preview, I did mention that one of the teams would get their combination right. We will have to wait and see how England bat but as things stand it seems as if England picked the right side.

After India’s 1st innings the points have shaped up like this.

In the first graph, I am using a simple system where the integer represents the Test match and the decimal the innings. England is in dark blue and India in light blue.

India has not scored any points and England have increased their points. I am reasonably certain that we will see the early introduction of spin.

I will update the player list after England’s first innings. Here is hoping to a good rain-free Saturday day of play.