Dharamshala, March 7 (IANS) Zak Crawley smashed an unbeaten 61 to keep India at bay, but Kuldeep Yadav picked two wickets in his first five overs as England reached 100/2 in 25.3 overs at lunch on day one of the fifth and final Test against India at the HPCA Stadium on Thursday.
Electing to bat first, Crawley and Ben Duckett had to withstand some outstanding swing bowling from a returning Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj asking tough questions constantly. The duo rode their luck as they played and missed deliveries on various occasions, while dealing with variable bounce.
While Duckett struggled, Crawley was pristine in his drives whenever he wasn’t troubled by swing and even survived an lbw appeal off Siraj. Duckett brought up the half-century of the partnership, the fifth such instance for England in the series, with a pre-mediated lap-sweep against Ravichandran Ashwin in the 15th over.
Crawley and Duckett took a four each off Kuldeep, but the latter tried to smash a googly over the leg-side, but got a huge leading edge and Shubman Gill ran to his right from cover to take a fabulous diving catch.
Crawley was languid in using his long levers for driving in mid-off, extra cover and down the ground against the spinners to get his fourth fifty of the series. He would also hit the first six of the match by dancing down the pitch to smack Ashwin over long-on. But at the stroke of lunch, Pope came out of the crease for a flick against Kuldeep, but the googly skidded and went past the outside edge to give Dhruv Jurel an easy stumping from behind.
Brief Scores: England 100/2 in 25.3 overs (Zak Crawley 61 not out; Kuldeep Yadav 2-22) against India
–IANS
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