ENG vs IND: Sam Billings' one-handed stunner sends back Shreyas Iyer in Edgbaston Test

India lost early wickets on the first day of the rescheduled fifth and final Test match at Edgbaston that saw a brilliant bowling display from the hosts after skipper Ben Stokes called it right at the toss in the morning. The Indian batters who got some match practice in the four-day practice fixture failed to apply themselves on match day.

Meanwhile, after an awkward top-order collapse, the middle-order tried their level best to show some resistance, especially Shreyas Iyer who is slowly emerging as one of India’s permanent middle-order batters in red-ball cricket. However, his stay at the crease came to an end in an extraordinary fashion courtesy of a one-handed stunner from Sam Billings.

Sam Billings takes a screamer to send back Shreyas Iyer

This happened in the 28th over of the innings bowled by veteran pacer James Anderson. On the penultimate delivery of that over, Anderson delivered a short ball to a seemingly unsettled Iyer and the ploy worked brilliantly against him. The batter who had played 10 deliveries by then got deceived completely as he attempted to fend it away, but the ball made contact with his gloves and it appeared for a moment that it would succeed in beating the keeper.

Nonetheless, an alert Sam Billings showed a great presence of mind as he brilliantly dived to his left and completed an unbelievable catch. A stunned Iyer had no choice but to walk back to the pavilion as the visitors lost their fifth wicket just after having 98 runs on the board.

Watch the video here:

Ooooooh what a catch @sambillings!! 🤲

Scorecard & Videos: https://t.co/jKoipFn3e9

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 #ENGvIND 🇮🇳 pic.twitter.com/BOLkN8d7TR

— England Cricket (@englandcricket) July 1, 2022

Coming back to the contest, none of the Indian batters could even register a half-century and the highlight of the day was arguably Virat Kohli’s poor run with the bat as he was dismissed for just 11 runs against his name by Matthew Potts. The onus would now be on the last recognized batting pair of Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja to help India post a respectable first innings total.