England finally saw the back of Murali Vijay as India continued to grind out the runs in their first Test at Trent Bridge yesterday.
India were 342 for five at lunch on the second day after opener Vijay fell leg-before-wicket to James Anderson for 146 — the only wicket England took in the session.
However, India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni — dropped on his overnight score of 50 — was 81 not out, while Ravindra Jadeja was 24 not out.
India resumed on 259 for four, with Vijay 122 not out — his fourth Test hundred, but first overseas — and Dhoni, who had won the toss, at the crease.
It had been a gruelling first day for England’s four seamers on a flat pitch in ground that had precious little pace and bounce.
In these circumstances, they could ill afford dropped catches.
Yet when Dhoni drove loosely at a full-length delivery from England skipper Stuart Broad and got a thick edge, England wicketkeeper Matt Prior, diving to his right, floored the one-handed chance.
Vijay had got off to a flyer on Wednesday with 11 boundaries in his first 50 runs and he showed that magic touch again yesterday by cover-driving Anderson for four.
Nevertheless, both Anderson (4-2-9-0) and Broad (5-3-8-0), on his Nottinghamshire home ground, proved tough to get away.
Nevertheless, Vijay played arguably the shot of the morning when he leaned forward to guide all-rounder Ben Stokes through backward point for four.
England captain Alastair Cook tried to be innovative by packing the offside field in front of the wicket only for Dhoni to still get the ball through for four off Stokes.
Yet Vijay’s near eight-hour innings eventually ended when he was leg-before-wicket to Anderson after having faced 361 balls, including 25 fours and a six.
He also put on 126 for the fifth wicket with Dhoni.
Replays suggested the ball was going over top of the stumps but with no Decision Review System this series due to Indian objections, Vijay had to accept Australian umpire Bruce Oxenford’s verdict.
Jadeja, who would have been run out for four had Stokes’s shy hit the stumps, then exposed the weak link in England’s attack by driving part-time off-spinner Moeen Ali for two straight sixes in three balls.
Ali’s three overs in the session cost 20 runs, giving him expensive lunch figures of none for 70 in 12 overs.
Nottinghamshire head groundsman Steve Birks said things had not gone to plan after appearing to produce a pitch ideally suited for India, rather than England.
“We wanted to produce a pitch with pace, bounce and carry which hasn’t happened unfortunately,” Birks said on Wednesday. “There’s quite a lot of moisture underneath but it’s a hard surface on top which is why it’s lacking pace”
“Our only instruction is to produce a good cricket wicket and, with hindsight, we may have left a bit more grass on it, but this is the first day of a five-day Test and, while I don’t expect spin to come into it, we hope it might quicken up a bit,” Birks said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier