Hours after left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav spun a web around the English batters to mark a memorable return to his happy hunting ground with a fifer and bowl England out for 218, opener Yashasvi Jaiswal punctured England’s Bazball with an aggressive half century to propel the hosts to 135 for 1 at stumps on the opening day of the fifth Test at the picturesque HPCA Stadium in Dharamsala.
In the run-up to the fifth and final Test, all eyes were on India’s Ravichandran Ashwin and England’s Jonny Bairstow, featuring in their 100th Test match. While Bairstow couldn’t make the most of the opportunity as he would have wanted, after getting out for 29, Ashwin made a mark by polishing off England’s tail with a four-wicket haul. But the 37-year-old Ashwin’s heroics on the day were somewhat overshadowed by his younger spin partner Kuldeep.
The 29-year-old Kuldeep, who took a four-fer on his Test debut at the same venue seven years back, proved to be the difference in the spin attacks of either side, as the English batters miserably failed to counter his wrath. In the process, the Kanpur lad became the quickest Indian bowler and the quickest spinner in the world in the last 100 years (in terms of bowls bowled) to pick 50 Test wickets. He took only 1871 balls to reach 50 Test wickets. In terms of matches played, he was the joint-sixth fastest Indian along with Subhash Gupte, Erapalli Prasanna, and Axar Patel.
After winning the toss, England got off to a positive start with Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett enduring a tough first hour in swinging conditions before lifting the visitors to 64 for 0 with their seventh 45-plus stand in nine partnerships on this tour. However, that scoreline was 175 for 6 by the time Ben Stokes became Kuldeep’s fifth and final scalp, and ultimately 218 all out with Ashwin running through the tail.
Introduced into the attack by the 18th over, Kuldeep struck in his first over with the wicket of Duckett (27), who climbed through the googly with a swipe over the leg-side, but got a steeping leading edge for Shubman Gill to cling on to a fabulous catch, running back from cover. He then got rid of Ollie Pope (11) for his second wicket of the session, before sending back the big fish Zak Crawley (79 off 108) with a delivery that turned massively from the imaginary fifth stump to shatter the England opener’s leg stump.
Bairstow, the 17th Englishman to play his 100th Test, showed plenty of intent in his innings but he too failed to read Kuldeep from his hands and got a faint outside edge off a googly. He went for a review but ended up wasting it, exactly what Joe Root (26) and Ben Stokes (0) did on the same score of 175. Ravindra Jadeja trapped Root in front with a straighter one after beating the English batter’s outside edge on the previous ball. Stokes too survived six deliveries but met the same fate against Kuldeep for his fifth scalp.
Ashwin then came back to claim the remaining four wickets to leave India with less than a session to reduce the deficit.
And then Jaiswal and skipper Rohit Sharma made a big hole in the deficit with their aggressive approach. While Jaiswal eventually fell prey to his own aggression, he ensured India got off to a thumping 104-run opening stand, and walked back after scoring 57 off 58 deliveries, laced with five boundaries and three sixes. Jaiswal’s knock set the record for most runs by an India batter in a series against England. He also became only the second Indian to score 700 in a series.
At the other end, Rohit (52 not out) too went about his business, bringing up yet another half century and in the company of Shubman Gill (26 not out) raised 31 unbeaten runs for the second wicket before the bails were withdrawn for the day.