Nagpur Test: England crawl to 133/4 (Tea Report)

Nagpur, Dec 13 (IANS) England crawled to 133 for four in 65 overs by tea on the opening day of the fourth cricket Test against India at the VCA Stadium in Jamtha here Thursday.

Kevin Pietersen (68 not out) held the England innings together on a slow and low pitch alongside debutant Joe Root (10 not out). India’s debutants Ravindra Jadeja and Piyush Chawla dismissed Jonathan Trott (44) and Ian Bell (1) respectively to add to Ishant Sharma’s double strike in the morning.

Trott let a straight one off Jadeja go to see his stumps rattled while Bell popped a simple catch to short extra cover while playing early on a leg-spinner off Chawla.

Runs were hard to come by and it was best evident with the usually aggressive Pietersen scoring his 65 off 178 balls.

Earlier, England reached 61 for two at lunch after electing to bat.

Playing in his fourth Test, Nick Compton (3) poked a length ball by Sharma that rose and went to wicketkeeper Dhoni, who had to stoop low to take the catch on the second ball of the fifth over.

In-form batsman and England skipper Alastair Cook (1) was rather unlucky to get out leg before wicket with Sharma’s in-coming delivery apparently not doing enough to hit the stumps.

IANS 2012-12-13 15:24:04