High drama in the ongoing India vs England Test series is a culmination of the many changes we've been seeing in Test cricket lately. High scores and storied debuts seem to have become par for course in the age of T20 (read Indian Premier League) and Bazball. Day 1 of the fourth Test at Ranchi has been no different, with debutant fast bowler Akash Deep taking three key wickets early on in the game.
Here's how it happened
When Mohammed Siraj had finished bowling the seventh over of the match, England were 37/0. This last over alone had gone for 19 runs, including three boundaries and one six.
Akash Deep came on in the ninth over. Two balls in, he broke Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett's partnership, dismissing Duckett for 11 runs (wicketkeeper Dhruv Jurel, who made his Test debut for India in the third Test at Rajkot, caught the ball).
Two deliveries later, Akash Deep had also claimed the wicket of Ollie Pope who had hit 196 in the first Test in Hyderabad in an LBW that went to review. Pope failed to open his score in this match.
Seventy-one deliveries into the match, Akash Deep claimed his third victim: the second half of England's opening pair Crawley-Duckett. Crawley missed a half-century, scoring 42 runs off 42 balls.
IND v ENG: What you need to know now
Akash Deep is the fourth Indian player to make his Test debut in this series against England, after Rajat Patidar (right-hand top-order batsman and off-spinner), Sarfaraz Khan (right-hand batsman) and Jurel. He is also the 313th person to play Test cricket for India.
India are leading the five-Test series 2-1. Akash Deep was brought in to give right-arm pacer Jasprit Bumrah a rest. The England team, too, had two important changes - switching Mark Wood and Rehan Ahmed with Ollie Robinson and Shoaib Bashir.
England won the coin toss, and elected to bat - the obvious choice, given that the pitch looked dry and had a few cracks at both ends at the start.
At the time of publishing, England were 165/5 in 46 overs.
IND v ENG fourth Test teams
India: Rohit Sharma (captain), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Rajat Patidar, Sarfaraz Khan, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel (wicketkeeper), Ravichandran Ashwin, Kuldeep Yadav, Akash Deep, Mohammed Siraj
England: Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes (captain), Ben Foakes (wicketkeeper), Tom Hartley, Ollie Robinson, James Anderson, Shoaib Bashir
With inputs from Reuters
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