LONDON: England pacer James Anderson on Thursday surpassed Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar to play the most number of home Test matches.
Anderson achieved the feat in the ongoing Day 1 of the fourth Test against India here at The Oval. The pacer has now played 95 Tests in England while Tendulkar had played 94 in India.
Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting had played 92 Tests on home soil while England's Alastair Cook had played 89 Tests. The same number of Tests were played by Steve Waugh in Australia.
Coming back to the ongoing match, India lost the wickets of Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul and Cheteshwar Pujara as England dominated the opening session of the fourth Test of the five-match series.
At lunch, India's score read 54/3 with Kohli (18*) and Ravindra Jadeja (2*) unbeaten at the crease. In the first session, 25 overs were bowled and the English bowlers made sure they repaid the faith shown by skipper Joe Root as he won the toss and decided to bowl.
Sent into bat, the Indian openers -- Rohit and Rahul -- mixed caution with aggression and the duo saw out the opening spells of James Anderson and Ollie Robinson. However, the introduction of Chris Woakes paid off straight away as he dismissed Rohit (11), ending the 28-run opening stand.
Pujara next joined Rahul in the middle and the duo found the going tough and they did not score a single run for almost five overs, and this eventually brought about a wicket, as Rahul (17) was trapped in front by Ollie Robinson, reducing India to 28/2.
Pujara (4) also failed to leave a mark with the bat as he chased a wide delivery and his wicket was grabbed by James Anderson, reducing India to 39/3 in the 20th over. In the end, Kohli and Jadeja ensured that India went into the lunch break without losing any further wicket.