What happened the last time India opted to field first in a home Test?
The second Test of the ongoing series between India and Bangladesh got underway on Friday, September 27, at Green Park in Kanpur. The home side fielded an unchanged playing XI, while the Bangla Tigers made a couple of changes from the first Test, which they lost by 280 runs.
While teams prefer to bat first on subcontinent wickets, Indian skipper Rohit Sharma made a surprising call to field first after winning the toss. The last time India chose to field first in a home Test match was way back in 2015. They did so against South Africa at the MA Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.
It is the ninth-shortest non-abandoned Test match that was called off before noon on the final day after four consecutive days were washed out. Put into bat first, the Proteas danced to Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja's tunes who shared eight wickets between them to derail the visitors, who managed to get to 214.
Only AB de Villiers showed some resistance, playing his counter-attacking game and taking the Indian bowlers to the cleaners. The right-hander, who was playing his 100th Test, scored 85 off 105 balls, including 11 boundaries and one six. His knock helped his side put some runs on the scoreboard.
In reply, Shikhar Dhawan, coming from a pair in the first Test, scored an unbeaten 45 before rain played spoilsport. India were 80/0 at that time and no further play was possible in the next four days before the umpires called off the Test match.
Led by Virat Kohli, the hosts went into the third Test with a 1-0 lead after having won the first Test by 108 runs. The home side won the next two games of the series convincingly to win the four-match affair 3-0.
Day 1 of 2nd Test between India and Bangladesh gets washed out after 35 overs of play
Day 1 of the Kanpur Test on Friday witnessed a similar narrative after rain halted play. The toss was delayed by an hour before Rohit Sharma chose to bowl first.
Bangladesh openers did well to negate the new ball threat from Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj. However, Akash Deep weaved his magic once again to hand the visitors a double blow in the space of a few overs. Reeling at 29/2, they were in some sort of trouble. Skipper Najmul Hossain Shanto and Mominul Haque then stitched together a valuable partnership to go to lunch without losing any more wickets.
However, Ashwin struck moments after lunch to send back the Bangladesh skipper to have them at 80/3. Mominul played a few good-looking shots before rain came pouring down. The day's play was eventually called off with the Bangla Tigers stationed at 107/3.