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The opening pair for India, Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi
Jaiswal, did not play with the attacking intent that England saw on the first
night of the first Test in Hyderabad. Ben Duckett said that England’s 246 was
“an above-par score” on the first day of the five-match series,
despite the fact that nine wickets fell to spin.
“It’s spinning quite a lot on day one,”
Duckett told talkSPORT. “We could have easily had three or four [wickets]
there tonight and it could have been very different. The way they played at the
top was quite positive, and that’s fair play to them. I don’t think we
necessarily thought they were going to come out and play like that, but Stokesy
[Ben Stokes] got us to what we think was an above-par score.
“It was quite a good day. I thought we were
pretty happy there, getting bowled out for what we were. I thought Stokesy was
superb. We found it pretty tricky and I think, to be honest, they played well
and really positively tonight. It’s tough work against that attack, and I
thought we grafted really well today… when the ball is spinning like that on
day one, it can be quite tough.”
Before Jack Leach claimed England’s lone wicket of the
opening day, Rohit and Jaiswal had an 80-run partnership in 12.2 overs. Rohit
was caught at mid-on by a back-pedalling Stokes. After hitting 76 off 70 balls,
Jaiswal was undefeated at stumps. Shubman Gill, starting at No. 3, played more
cautiously and finished at 14 not out.
According to Duckett, India decided to assault because
they thought the pitch would get worse as the game went on.
“You have to pay credit to them: they played
really well tonight and were very attacking, which is positive,” he told
reporters. “They don’t always go about it like that, so to go about it
that way shows that they probably think that pitch is going to get quite a bit
worse.”