Twitter Reactions: India sail through a rough England tide

Virat Kohli quite gladly shook hands with Alastair Cook a few minutes past 16:30 IST as he had Ravindra Jadeja at the other end while they were six wickets down and panting hard as they still had a few miles to travel before they could drop anchors at the harbor. Adil Rashid was a confident bowler who knew he had assistance from the wicket and the Indian batsmen, the better ones against spin weren’t reading him well and this was their best chance to beat the Indians right in the first match of the five-match series.

Cook would have loved to have another half hour to push for a result but with Kohli batting pretty stably and Jadeja also scoring runs at the other end the match ended in a draw while with just 4 wickets to win this might have well been England’s prettiest opportunity. Right from the moment the game kick started with the toss it swung against India and nothing quite went their way in the first couple of days.

England batted exceptionally well to post a huge total that almost ruled out their probability of losing the game. Centuries from Joe Root, Moeen Ali and Ben Stokes gave them a lot of belief as a team. India replied quite strongly as Murali Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara scored hundreds but the middle order didn’t have much to add and they were 49 runs in deficit.

It was skipper Alastair Cook taking charge of the batting in the second inning with young Haseeb Hameed. They didn’t give the Indian bowlers a chance to force things and took it at their pace to gather a lead good enough to have the Indians under pressure. Hameed got a praiseworthy fifty on debut and Cook bettered it with a ton. England declared as soon as the skipper was dismissed with a few overs over a session left in play.

Gautam Gambhir was out for a duck but Vijay and Pujara held things together but once they were dismissed in quick succession and Ajinkya Rahane got out early the onus was on Kohli to take them through. He did that and was unbeaten on 49 but this is definitely a moral victory for the visitors while as far as the pitch is concerned will bear a different look in the following Tests.

Here is how Twitter reacted during the course of the game:

https://twitter.com/mohit_heble/status/797754513729921024

https://twitter.com/Cricketracker/status/797765915982974976

https://twitter.com/DennisCricket_/status/797759960083886080

https://twitter.com/Cricketracker/status/797769606182027264