India run into Root and a resolute England at Lord's

The hosts took a leaf out of history and decided to bat with reserve to reach 251/4 at close on Day 1

- Rasesh Mandani

The capacity crowd at Lord’s was making enough noise to keep the atmosphere festive. It's a good thing there was also a fair spread of past greats and connoisseurs because the cricket for the best part of day 1 from the home side, was anything but Bazball.

The uber aggressive method that England have been playing for three years now under Ben Stokes was abandoned, particularly in the post-lunch session by Joe Root and Ollie Pope.

Not to say it was a predetermined ploy by England as a batting collective. Openers Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley certainly took their chances as they usually do. But England's No 4 saw merit in resorting to play the ball on merit, and by the time, the umpires called stumps, he was unbeaten on 99 (191b) an anxious night's sleep away from his 37th Test ton.

England’s scoring rate in the post-lunch session was painfully slow. They managed only 70 runs in 24 overs, including a spell of 28 consecutive dot balls. Having made a bright start to the series, India could take some credit in forcing England to alter their plans. But it also threw them a challenge to uproot batters, who for once were determined to dig in.

The session began with Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj at their disciplined best - 15 runs in 10 overs. But England were happy to show intent in defense, the old fashioned way.

Other than the odd sledge, “Is this Bazball?”, Shubman Gill may have missed a trick by not trying to break the pattern of play. He had at his disposal the services of Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar. One of them could have been used as a bait to see if Pope would be tempted into playing one of his fancy reverse sweeps, which we know he can play from his Hyderabad Test hundred, last year.