Left arm spinner Axar Patel claimed six wickets as India gained the upper hand at the end of Day 1 of the third D/N test against England at Ahmedabad on Wednesday.
The home side made 2 changes by including Washington Sundar and Jasprit Bumrah in place of Mohammed Siraj and Kuldeep Yadav, while the visitors brought in James Anderson, Jofra Archer, Jonny Bairstow and Zak Crawley for Burns, Lawrence, Stone and Moeen Ali.
After winning the toss and electing to bat first, England opener Dom Sibley was caught at second slip by Rohit Sharma off Ishant Sharma in the third over for a duck.
Jonny Bairstow after being rested for the first two test matches didn’t trouble the scorers as he was trapped LBW for a nine-ball duck by local boy Axar Patel.
The pair of Zak Crawley along with skipper Joe Root stitched together a solid 47 run stand for the third wicket, before the latter was dismissed leg before wicket to Ravi Ashwin.
Crawley looked comfortable in the middle for the visitors by scoring a fluent 53 with 10 boundaries before he succumbed to Patel.
Ashwin claimed his 396th and 397th scalp by dismissing Ollie Pope and Jack Leach, while Axar claimed all rounder Ben Stokes and Jofra Archer leaving England in tatters at 93/7.
The 27 year old Axar claimed his second consecutive five-wicket haul, as England were routed for 112 runs in 48.4 overs.
Axar Patel was India’s best bowler with figures of 6/38, while Ravichandran Ashwin claimed 3 wickets.
India’s opening pair of Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill survived the spell of James Anderson and Stuart Broad. The latter however survived a couple of calls. In the first instance, Ben Stokes claimed a bump catch in the slips that kept low and in in the second instance, the rub of the green went the young opener’s way as he was saved by Umpire’s Call.
England however claimed the wicket of Gill, who mistimed a pull shot to Zak Crawley off Jofra Archer for 11.
Jack Leach claimed Cheteshwar Pujara for the third time in the series, as the Wall was caught in front of wicket by an arm ball.
Rohit along with skipper Virat Kohli added 64 runs for the third wicket. The former and latter were dropped on 52 & 24 respectively with Ollie Pope being the culprit on both occasions.
In the last over of the day Kohli was bowled by Jack Leach dismissed for 27.
At the end of Day 1, India were 99 for 3 with Rohit not out on 57.
