Young Rishabh Pant became the fourth Indian wicket-keeper to take five catches on Test debut during the second day of the third cricket Test against England at Trent Bridge in Nottingham on Sunday.
Rishabh Pant, who became India's 291st Test player, also became the first Indian wicket-keeper and the 5th wicket-keeper in Test history to take five catches in an innings on Test debut. The young wicket-keeper claimed the feat by taking the catches of Alastair Cook, Keaton Jennings, Ollie Pope, Chris Woakes and Adil Rashid in England's first innings.
Pant also joined the elite club of Naren Tamhane (vs Pakistan in 1955), Kiran More (vs England in 1986) and Naman Ojha (vs Sri Lanka in 2015), all of whom took five catches on their Test debuts.
Earlier, Pant marked his Test debut in style by slamming a six off leg-spinner Adil Rashid on the second ball of his innings on Saturday to become the first Indian to open his account in Test cricket with a six. Pant became the 12th batsman overall to do so.
Pant, however, failed to make it big and was out for 24 off 51 balls.
Hardik Pandya also had a great day while bowling as the Baroda all-rounder broke the back of English batting line-up with his 5/28. The hosts were bundled out for 161 in their first innings.
Hardik Pandya's 5/28 was his maiden 5-wicket haul in Test cricket and also became his best bowling figures in First-Class cricket too.
Apart from Pandya, pacers Ishant Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah also took couple of while Mohammed Shami bagged one.
In fact, Pandya's figure of 5/28 was the best innings figures for India at a Test in Nottingham.
India rode on a brilliant bowling display as the entire England batsmen were wrapped after they added just 115 runs in the second session of the second day.
After a decent start, as England were 46 for no loss at lunch, the Indian bowlers came all guns blazing to hand their side a 168-run lead after India's first Inning score of 329.
Jos Buttler was the top scorer for the hosts with his 39 runs while openers Alastair Cook and Keaton Jennings chipped in with 29 and 20 runs respectively.
Sunday’s innings became England’s fourth shortest innings in their history of Test cricket.
The final session of play saw Indian batsmen adding to their overall lead. Openers Shikhar Dhawan (44) and Lokesh Rahul again gave a decent start before Rahul was clean-bowled by Ben Stokes for 36. The duo added 60 runs for the first wicket and was only the third time that India had managed 50-plus opening partnerships in both innings of a Test match in England. In the first innings also they were part of a 60-run stand.
After Rahul’s dismissal Pujara and Dhawan added 61 runs before Dhawan was dismissed for 44 by spinner Adil Rashid. From thereafter, Kohli and Pujara played sensibly and without losing their wickets and ended the day at 124/2 and with a lead of massive 292 runs.
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(Statistics by Arun Gopalakrishnan)
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