India V England 2021 Tour

India bowling well. Root reaches 150 & looks to be trying to set himself up for another big one, playing second fiddle to Stokes, who has brought up his half-century, trying to take the attack to the 2 spinners who are getting some turn & bounce out of the rough. He has given 2 chances, a caught & bowled off Ashwin & another to Pujara in the outfield, both hit very hard. Shot of the day has to be a six that Stokes just timed back over Ashwin's head, as if he was pushing a single. At the start of Ashwin's next spell he faked to Mankad Stokes, Buttler looked on from the England balcony with a wry smile. Stokes using the reverse-sweep to good effect, but had a close call with a gloved chance dropping safe.

1st Test Day 2 Lunch
England 355-3 (119 overs)Root 156 no Stokes 63 no

Root reaches magnificent double century with a six !

Pitch already showing signs of breaking up which will please the England spinners for when they bowl.
First innings runs of obvious, paramount importance.

Root first batsman to reach a double hundred in his 100th Test match eventuall out for 218. What more could you ask from a cricket Team captain? The difficult bit is when to declare to get the bowlers on, and I get ther feeling the Indians will get pretty close to the England since they have a strong batting line - up.

555/8 at the close.

Root with the stand out innings of course but it is also good that lots of batsmen spent a bit of time in the middle.

Various contributions in the 30s and a couple in the 80s to offer decent support.
The pitch is wearing so it's key that England have cashed in and made a good score first up.

I thought Ishant Sharma bowled beautifully by the way.

I'd have thought that they would have put the pressure on and declared with about 20 minutes before stumps on about 580.

This would have allowed them a couple of overs tonight and first thing tomorrow morning at the Indian openers.

I tend to agree with the comments of Michael Vaughan on the BBC Cricket Social.
Under normal circumstances maybe push on for a declaration late on day one.

But on that wicket in Chennai he was saying days 1 and 2 plus a bit of day 3 are the best time to bat. Make your runs in that period and bat long in an effort to prevent a need for many if any 2nd innings runs on a wearing pitch.
The ball is doing more and more so the pitch is only going to get harder to bat on.
Conventional logic in the sort of conditions in Chennai goes out the window to a degree.

How the pitch behaves will dictate this result. They have a new groundsman & recent pitches have turned a lot & early. Traditionally the game tends to move forward at a pace late into day 4 & the last day it can really break up.

After the last events on this ground where 400 wasn't anything like enough, as India amassed 700 & England then had to bat last & lost, a declaration was always out of the question. India have a strong batting line-up, & I think that Archer, Stokes & to a lesser degree Anderson will all need to find a way to take wickets, otherwise Leach & Bess could come under pressure to perform.

England eventually dismissed for 578, after batting for 190.1 overs. A further 23 runs where added in 40 minutes of play with a mixture of luck & also some great shot from Leach & Bess who batted for almost 2 hours for his 34 runs, the same score as Pope, who looked rusty after being out of the game, Bess looked more assured & has benefitted from playing in the Sri Lanka series. A not out for Leach, who must surely bat ahead of Archer who has ability but lacks application.