India vs England 2nd Test: Virat Kohli & Cheteshwar Pujara Led India to a Great Start

India and England witnessed a close game in the 1st test of the series which Indian Team was somehow able to take towards a Draw and Virat Kohli was the one who deserved almost every share of the credit. The Indian Captain continued his momentum on the first day of the 2nd Test and took the score to 317-4 at stumps after opting to bat first.

Cheteshwar Pujara, the unsung hero of the last test match was there to support his captain and had equal share in current Indian Team standing of this game.

After losing both the opening batsmen early in the game, Team India and their supporters had high hopes from Cheteshwar Pujara who scored a hundred in the 1st Test match against England. The player with the help of Virat Kohli gave his team a respectable start.

The skipper’s entry in the stadium was deservingly cheered by the supporters and Virat Kohli started his innings with a terrific cover drive. Pujara, by this time had gone past the 3000 runs mark in Test Cricket and complemented Kohli by attacking the visitor’s bowling.

At Lunch, India was at 92 runs for the loss of 2 wickets with Cheteshwar Pujara (37*) and Virat Kohli (35*) still at the crease.

While England had moments of joy in the first session, the team was in for humiliation in the subsequent one and Virat Kohli made this evident when he clipped the first ball of the session for a boundary.

Even though England was trying desperately to put an end to the partnership, Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara comfortably reached their fifties and went on a scoring spree. Both the batsmen were not allowing the spinners to take the upper hand in the match and took their partnership past the 150 runs mark.

The England team was looking pale during these moments and Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara were aggressively building pressure on the visitors by quickly taking their respective innings to 90s till tea.

It was the third session where England was finally able to end the 226 runs partnership between Virat Kohli, and Cheteshwar Pujara by taking the latter’s wicket (119) in the middle of the first session. Virat Kohli, by that time, completed his seventh hundred of 2016 as a Test Captain.

Ajinkya Rahane came to bat and became a part of a 68 runs partnership with Virat Kohli, however, the former couldn’t carry forward the momentum and edged a big outswinger from Anderson and lost his wicket.

At Stumps, Kohli remained unbeaten at 151 runs and Ravichandran Ashwin (1*) will accompany him tomorrow to start the first session.

James Anderson was the one who gave England all the three much-needed breakthrough by claiming the wickets of Murali Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane. Stuart Broad, who took Lokesh Rahul’s wicket, was the only other wicket taking England Bowler.

Here are some of the records that were made during the 1st day of the second Test match between India and England.

1. Virat Kohli became the first Indian Captain to score 150+ runs thrice in a year.
2. Kohli has registered his 7th Test Century in 2016 as a Captain.
3. Pujara became the 5th Indian to reach the 3000 test runs mark and took 67 innings to accomplish this feat.
4. Pujara and Kohli made the first 100 runs 3rd wicket partnership stand in last 43 innings. Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid held this record earlier.

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17 November 2016
Rohan Jaitly