England vs India 2018: Ishant Sharma goes past 250 Test wickets; joins elite Indian club
After winning a handy toss and opting to bat first, England let go of the advantage by collapsing to 86/6 on a reasonably docile track at the Ageas Bowl. A splendid 81-run partnership between all-rounders Moeen Ali and Sam Curran resuscitated the innings.
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Curran, finishing on 78, was the only batsman to go past the 50-run mark. Jasprit Bumrah, with figures of 3/46, was the pick of the Indian bowlers. England were bowled out for 246 and India ended the first day's play at 19/0.
Here are all the important numbers from the opening day's play in Southampton.
2 - Number of series in which Joe Root has had a worse batting average than his 24.33 from six innings in the current series thus far. Those leaner series were against New Zealand away (17.60) in 2013 and Sri Lanka at home (21.75) in 2016.
7 - Ishant Sharma has become the seventh Indian bowler to reach the milestone of 250 Test wickets. Among fast bowlers, he is the third Indian to complete the landmark after Kapil Dev and Zaheer Khan. The others are spinners Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh, Ravichandran Ashwin and Bishan Singh Bedi.
29 - Total Test matches for Alastair Cook against India. He now equals former Australian captain Ricky Ponting in the list of players with most Test appearances against India.
34 - Extras in England's innings. Only Sam Curran (78) and Moeen Ali (40) managed to outscore the extras. Aside from 23 byes, there were nine leg-byes and two no-balls.
38 - Successive Tests in which captain Virat Kohli has changed India's playing eleven from one match to the next. This is the first instance of him naming an unchanged lineup in his captaincy career in Tests. In Test history, his streak is second only to Graeme Smith's 44 such matches.
43.76 - Strike-rate for Indian fast bowlers from six innings in the series thus far. This is the least number of deliveries needed by them to pick each wicket in a series of three or more matches either home or away. Also, this is the second-best strike-rate by any team's fast bowlers in a series of three or more matches against England in England.
45 - Consecutive Tests in which India changed their playing eleven from one match to the next. Prior to this match, the previous instance of them playing an unchanged lineup also came against England at Lord's during the 2014 series.
52 - Ishant Sharma is the 52nd bowler to go past 250 wickets in the history of Test cricket. However, his current average of 34.98 (at the end of England's first-innings) is the worst among them all.
160 - Runs added by England for their last four wickets. From a precarious position of 86/6, they ended up scoring 246 in their first innings.
205 - Total runs scored by Sam Curran from just four innings in the series so far. Only Virat Kohli (440 runs from six innings) and Jonny Bairstow (212 runs from six innings) have scored more runs than him.