England gifted India the initiative on day one of the Rothesay Test series at Headingley, where Yashavi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill rose to the occasion with a pair of fine centuries.
Ben Stokes sent the tourists in after winning the toss, perhaps hoping to unsettle a batting lineup missing the star power of the recently retired Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, but the gambit merely handed over first use of serene batting conditions.
Jaiswal led from the front with 101 on his first appearance on English soil, while Gill finished unbeaten on 127 in his maiden knock as Test captain. Kohli and Sharma’s golden legacies are sure to linger, but India’s future already looks in safe hands.
By stumps England were staring at a score of 359 for three, weighed down by a long, draining day in sticky summer heat and a difficult road ahead.
Stokes was the pick of the bowlers with two for 43 but Chris Woakes, Brydon Carse and Josh Tongue struggled to impose themselves in unhelpful conditions.
The story was set in motion at 10.30am, Gill calling wrong at the toss and Stokes opting to field. There was a hint of swing from the new ball, shared by the returning Woakes and Carse on home debut, but it quickly became apparent that there were no terrors in the pitch.
KL Rahul (42) offered a calm head at the top of the order and Jaiswal, well known to England after helping himself to a monstrous series tally of 712 runs when the sides last met in India, shackled his more explosive instincts as he bedded in.
Carse hit him with a rib-tickler in the initial burst, but when it came to clear chances, England were coming up empty-handed, squandering a review on Jaiswal when they sent Tongue’s ambitious lbw appeal upstairs.
India were seven minutes away from a wicketless session when Rahul threw his hands at a wide one from Carse to feed Joe Root at slip.
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That breakthrough brought the Yorkshire crowd alive, and their celebrations had barely dipped when they enjoyed a second. Sai Sudharsan’s first Test innings brought a four-ball duck, flicking Stokes down leg and into Jamie Smith’s gloves just seconds after flirting with an identical dismissal.
If that double strike smoothed some of the rough edges from England’s slow start, the afternoon’s play exposed them again.
Ollie Pope missed the chance to run Gill out for just one, sweetening the deal with four overthrows, and Harry Brook parried a low edge into the wicketkeeper’s helmet to give up five penalty runs.
Jaiswal’s first half-century occupied 96 balls, and he glided through the gears to get his next 50 in just 48, despite several delays for cramp in his hand. Twice he took three boundaries in an over, first taking aim at the lethargic Woakes and later breezing through the nineties at Carse’s expense.
Shoaib Bashir brought some control in his 21 overs but there was not enough spin on offer to turn that into real pressure.
It took a burst of inspiration from Stokes to stop the rot, charging in from round the wicket and toppling Jaiswal’s off stump, having forced one past the outside edge.
By then, Gill had progressed to 63 and had set his sights on a captain’s century. He got there with his 14th boundary, a peach of a cover drive off Tongue. It was the sixth hundred of his career and his first outside Asia.
The unpredictable Rishabh Pant poured on further pain with 65 not out. Starting his innings by charging Stokes for four down the ground, he settled into an extended spell of defence before springing into life with some big hits in the closing stages.
Thumbing his nose at convention, Pant danced down again in the final over of the day to flog Woakes over deep square-leg for six.
