England beat India to take 1-0 lead
Sam Curran grabbed four top Indian wickets in the first innings and gave his team a precious 13-run lead despite a century by Indian skipper Kohli
BIRMINGHAM: England’s Ben Stokes grabbed three wickets on Saturday including the prized scalp of India captain Virat Kohli to give the hosts a stunning victory by 31 runs on the fourth day of the first test match at Edgbaston.
Chasing 194 runs, India resumed their second innings at 110 for the loss of five wickets with Kohli and wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik needing 84 for victory.
But the hosts, playing their 1,000th test match, made an early breakthrough with strike bowler James Anderson removing Karthik with the final delivery of the first over.
That brought all-rounder Hardik Pandya to the crease and at one stage the visitors seemed to have found their way back into a gripping contest that has swung with every session over the last three days.
The duo put on 29 runs for the seventh wicket with Pandya looking the more aggressive of the two, hitting Stuart Broad for two consecutive boundaries in one over.
Stokes Strikes
But the introduction of Stokes in the eleventh over of the day dragged the momentum back in England’s favour.
First he trapped Kohli, who was looking dangerous after scoring a fluent half century, with a beautiful delivery that rapped him on the pads and followed that up by dismissing bowler Mohammed Shami for a duck. Pandya offered some resistance to the English bowlers but the task turned out to be too big for him at the end. For the visitors, this would have been the biggest run chase against the hosts in England if successful. He was the last man out for the visitors and gave Stokes his fourth wicket of the innings. England captain Joe Root said the determination his team mates showed will prove vital going forward. “Whenever you play games like this you want to end up on the right side for different reasons,” he said. “It gives us a great deal of confidence going into the rest of the series.”
The win gave England a 1-0 lead in the five match series. The second test begins at Lord’s on August. 9 Root’s side won the one-day international series between the teams 2-1 and lost the Twenty20 competition by the same margin last month. It was billed to be a contest between England’s most prolific wicket-taker James Anderson and India’s top batsman Virat Kohli.
Unlikely hero
But in the end, an unlikely 20-yearold playing in only his second test match stole the limelight from his more established peers and dragged his team to victory over the world’s top ranked test nation in the first match of a five game series.
Sam Curran grabbed four top Indian wickets in the first innings and gave his team a precious 13run lead despite a century by Indian skipper Kohli. Then in the second innings, with England on the ropes at 87 for 7, he strung together two valuable partnerships that saw England put up an overall target of 194 runs for the hosts to win. Playing with confidence, the left arm swing bowler who plays for county Surrey, first combined with Adil Rashid for 48 runs, which was the biggest of the English innings, and then 41 with fast bowler Stuart Broad for the ninth wicket.
Following England’s victory, Curran was given the man of the match award. “I can’t take it all at the moment,” Curran, told a post match news conference. “It feels like I’m dreaming. I’m sure I’ll sleep well tonight because I didn’t get any last night.”
Curran made his test and oneday international debut for England earlier this year and his swing bowling, especially against the Indian top order, impressed his peers. “Sam Curran has a great amount of skill, very exciting and promising cricketer,” skipper Joe Root said.