Day 1 of the IND vs ENG Dharamsala Test well and truly belonged to India. They bowled out England for a paltry 218 and ended the day in a strong position at 135/1. They will resume day 2 with a deficit of just 83 runs.
The Indian bowlers set up the game for the batters to follow. Kuldeep Yadav picked up his fourth fifer in Test cricket. He picked up 5/72 with Ravichandran Ashwin picking up 4/51 on his 100th Test match. Ravindra Jadeja took the key wicket of Joe Root.
All the wickets went to the spinners but both Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj caused enough discomfort to the England batters with their opening burst on a decent Dharamsala track.
As always the England openers added a 50-plus stand. The wicket of Ollie Pope at the stroke of lunch opened the floodgates for England. Pope was dismissed in the 26th over of the England innings. The middle-order of England hardly contributed as the rest of the England batters were dismissed in another 26 overs.
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The inability of the England batters to handle the pressure and their inability to play top-class spin was on show. Joe Root and Ben Stokes even with their experience of playing in Indian conditions had no answers to the Indian spin trio. Most of them failed to gauge the length and turn of the deliveries and were struggling especially against Kuldeep.
After bowling out England rather cheaply, Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal started positively. They added a 104-run opening stand with both the batters achieving respective landmarks. Rohit went past 1000 Test runs as captain while Jaiswal went past 1000 Test runs.
He also now has over 700 runs in the series and is just the second batter after Sunil Gavaskar to score more than 700 runs in a Test series. Gavaskar did it twice. The southpaw also went past Virat Kohli’s tally of 655 against England in 2016. Overall, it was a good day of Test cricket for the Indian team and the Indian fans in the scenic backdrop of the Dharamsala stadium.
They will now have to capitalize with the bat on day 2 after finishing the day on top. The England bowlers did have their moments and it was finally Shoaib Bashir who broke through as he got Jaiswal stumped.
IND vs ENG Day 2 Weather Report and Pitch Report of Dharamsala Test, 2024
Dharamsala saw a lot of rain in the last few days before the second Test. However, there was bright sunshine on day 1 throughout the day. The sun kept shining throughout the day providing the players warmth on the backdrop of the hills. The temperature in the morning will be around 11 degrees with good-quality sunlight as per Accuweather. The temperature is expected to stay around 11 degrees throughout the afternoon. The weather conditions will clear out by the evening and will be around 9 degrees.
Talking about the pitch, if anything it will only get better as the day progresses. If the batters can play out the first hour when the ball is expected to do the most like it did on day one. the batters will have enough time to cash in throughout the remaining day. Spin will come into play possibly after the first hour. Thus the England spinners will have to do a lot of bowling on day 2.
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