Debutant Hartley rips through Indian batting

Hyderabad – Debutant spinner Tom Hartley took seven wickets as England pulled off a dramatic 28-run upset win over India marked by a stellar batting performance by Ollie Pope in the opening Test yesterday.

“Since I’ve taken the captaincy on...it’s 100% our greatest victory,” England skipper Ben Stokes said.

Chasing 231 for victory, India were bowled out for 202 in the final over of an extended third session of play on the fourth day in Hyderabad, as Hartley got Mohammed Siraj stumped with his left-arm spin to trigger celebrations from the England camp.

Pope stood out with his 196 to bring England bouncing back from being 190 behind at the start of their second innings and to lead the fivematch series 1-0.

Hartley, who got his five-wicket haul after he bowled wicketkeeper-batsman K.S. Bharat, kept coming back to return figures of 7/62 and a match tally of nine wickets.

“It’s unbelievable,” Hartley said after the match, adding that the win was “not going to sink in” for some time. “I’m over the moon,” he added.

India came into the high-profile encounter as favourites on home soil, with an unbeaten Test series record since 2012.

Indian skipper Rohit Sharma said it was “hard to pinpoint where it went wrong”, and congratulated England for “exceptional” batting.

“You’ve got to take your hat off, and say ‘well played’ to Pope,” he said.

India started well in their chase, before Hartley struck twice in one over to send back Yashasvi Jaiswal (15) and Shubman Gill (0).

Rohit looked good in his knock of 39, but got rapped on the pads by Hartley’s darting ball into the right-hander.

The left-handed Axar Patel (17) was promoted up the order and began attacking the bowling but was dismissed shortly after the tea break and India soon slipped to 119/7.

Bharat and Ravichandran Ashwin attempted to pull things back in their dogged partnership of 57 but Hartley got them out to end India’s hopes. –