Pope's 196, Hartley's 7 wickets or self-destruction? Where India lost first Test vs England
Hindustan TimesIndia will look back at the first Test and wonder when they allowed it to get away from them. India's bowler Ravichandran Ashwin celebrates the wicket of England's batter Tom Hartley during the fourth day of the first Test Was it on days three and four, when Ollie Pope constructed one of the great innings on Indian soil but with no little assistance from India’s ragged spinners, that the tide turned? Going against their natural grain and their previous sorties to India, England picked three specialist spinners – as well as the better-than-part-time off-spinner Joe Root – and only one specialist quick in Mark Wood, convinced that combination gave them their best chance of success. Had their execution with the ball been better, Pope would not have been given the license to breeze to 196, an admittedly stunning masterpiece full of sweeps and reverse sweeps, and England to 420 – only the ninth instance of a touring team scoring more than 400 in its second innings of a Test in India. Rohit battled on, but so on-target were the English bowlers – unlike India’s more celebrated tweakers – that every ball was an examination.