LONDON: Despite the conditions being overcast and the Oval pitch being green, Indian team management stood by their decision and rested pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah for the fifth and final Test, which started here at the Oval on Thursday.
The visitors made as many as four changes with Rishabh Pant, who broke his right foot in the last match, and rookie fast bowler Anshul Kamboj also being replaced with Dhruv Jurel and pacer Akash Deep. Prasidh Krishna, who played the first two matches, also made his way to the team. Given their long standing strategy to strengthen their batting line-up, India also replaced all-rounder Shardul Thakur with batter Karun Nair, who was dropped from the team for the Manchester Test.
As has been the case throughout the series, skipper Shubman Gill once again lost the toss and Ollie Pope, England's captain in absence of injured Ben Stokes, has no hesitation in opting to bowl. Right-arm pacer Gus Atkinson, playing his first match of the series, proved his captain right as he sent back opener Yashasvi Jaiswal in the fourth over of the day. The ball thudded onto the front pad before brushing the back pad but the umpire was unmoved. Pope reviewed the decision and England got their first victim. Jaiswal started the series with a bang and slammed a century in the first innings at Leeds. Since then, however, he has not been consistent with the bat. He has two half-centuries to his credit but also got out for a duck twice in the last two matches before two off nine balls at the Oval.
Atkinson bowled beautifully in his first spell of six overs, where he gave away seven runs and claimed a wicket. Chris Woakes, who started the proceedings for the hosts and bowled a four-over spell from the Vauxhall End then replaced Atkinson from the Pavilion End.
The decision paid dividends immediately as Woakes had the big scalp of KL Rahul. It was pitched short outside off stump and the Karnataka batter tried to cut it only to get a thick inside-edge that rattled his stumps. It was not the first time Rahul had played on to his stumps in the series.
Josh Tongue, who played the first two matches of the series and picked up 11 wickets before being sidelined, apparently struggled with his line and length and also conceded a boundary bowling way too down the leg side to B Sai Sudharsan. At times, he even lost his footing apparently due to dampness as Woakes used sand to repair the crease end. Jamie Overton, who replaced Tongue after his spell of five overs, also struggled in his first over.
Reduced to 2/38, the new batter in, Gill, started cautiously and took the team's total past 50-run marks along with Sudharsan. The overcast conditions gave way to bright sunny day about one-and-half-hour after the play started making batting easy for the India batters.However, it started raining suddenly as India batters were looking in control calling for an early lunch. Gill and Co were 72/2 after 23 overs then.
