Final Test: Yashasvi Jaiswal Emulates Gavaskar After Kuldeep & Ashwin Skittle Out England For 218

Dharamsala: The series already in the bag, Team India refused to show any mercy to England on the opening day of the fifth and final Test match here at the picturesque HPCA Stadium.

Rohit Sharma lost the toss to Ben Stokes and England looked to be on course to a big first-innings total at 100/1 and then, at 175/3.

But the visitors suffered an all too familiar collapse and lost seven wickets for 43 runs to be skittled out for 218 in under 60 overs.

All 10 wickets were captured by the spinners, with left-arm chinaman Kuldeep Yadav being the wrecker-in-chief. He bagged the first four wickets before adding the scalp of Stokes to finish with 5/72 in a wonderful exhibition of wrist spin on a flat opening-day track.

Ravichandran Ashwin (4/51) celebrated his 100th Test match by running through the English tail and Ravindra Jadeja claimed the important wicket of Joe Root.

Opener Zak Crawley top-scored with a chancy 79, his fourth half-century of the series without managing to convert any of those into a hundred.

The openers consolidated the advantage that the spinners had handed Team India. Skipper Rohit Sharma and the prolific Yashasvi Jaiswal scored fluent fifties in stroke-filled 104-run partnership.

Young Jaiswal (57 off 58 balls, 5×4, 3×6) threw his wicket away as he charged out to attempt a third successive boundary off Shoaib Bashir only to miss the ball and get stumped by Ben Foakes.

During the course of his typically stylish and flamboyant knock, Jaiswal set a few more milestones.

The 22-year-old left-handed opener reached 1,000 Test runs in only his ninth match.

An even bigger feat was Jaiswal crossing 700 runs in the series, thus becoming only the second Indian to do so. He joined the elite company of legendary opener Sunil Gavaskar, who aggregated 700-plus runs twice – 774 in his debut series (4 Tests) in the West Indies in 1970-71 and 732 runs (6 Tests) in the 1978-79 home series versus West Indies.

With one innings to go, Jaiswal has 712 runs in 9 innings, with 2 double hundreds and 3 half-centuries.

Rohit Sharma is unbeaten on 52 and Shubman Gill on 26 at close on Thursday.

Brief Scores

England 218 all out in 57.4 overs (Zak Crawley 79; Kuldeep Yadav 5/72, Ravichandran Ashwin 4/51).

India 135/1 in 30 overs (Yashasvi Jaiswal 57, Rohit Sharma 52 batting, Shubman Gill 26 batting).

Match to continue on Day 2, India trail by 83 runs.