With both sides fighting for the right to take on New Zealand in the final of the ICC World Test Championship, the series-opening match in Chennai between India and England should be, as witnessed in many crunch sporting matches, riddled with tension. But that was not the case as both the captains demonstrated mutual respect for each other even in the midst of a keenly contested duel.
Day 1 Blog | Scorecard | News
England captain Joe Root, who's playing his 100th Test match, won the toss at The Chepauk and opted to bat first. After a good start from the openers Rory Burns and Dominic Sibley, India claimed two wickets thus bringing Root in the centre.
Then, in the 34th over, Indian captain Virat Kohli was seen approaching Root for a cordial chat. The two skippers seemed to enjoy the moment even as Ishant Sharma prepared to deliver his next ball to Sibley.
Watch it here, courtesy BCCI:
Root picked up from where he left off in Sri Lanka by hitting a magnificent century, a hundred in his 100th Test match. And Kohli was seen graciously applauding his great rival.
Root reached his hundred with a single off the last ball of the 78th over, bowled by Washington Sundar. He took 164 balls to reach the landmark. He now has 20 centuries in 100 matches.
The 30-year-old, who hit 228 and 186 in England's 2-0 series win in Sri Lanka before arriving in India, thus became the first-ever batsman to score a century in his 98th, 99th and 100th Test matches.
The right-handed batsman is also the ninth cricketer to hit a ton in his 100th match, after Colin Cowdrey, Javed Miandad, Gordon Greenidge, Alec Stewart, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Ricky Ponting, Graeme Smith and Hashim Amla.
Incidentally, Root also made his Test debut during the series against India in 2012.
At the time of filing the report, England were 249/2 (83) , with Root and Dominic Sibley unbeaten on 116 and 85 runs respectively. They have added 186 runs in 351 balls for the third wicket.
Playing XIs
India: Virat Kohli (captain), Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Rishab Pant (wk), R Ashwin, Washington Sundar, Ishant Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Shahbaz Nadeem.
England: Joe Root (captain), Rory Burns, Dominic Sibley, Ollie Pope, Dan Lawrence, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler (wk), Jofra Archer, Dom Bess, James Anderson, Jack Leach.
