Ishant Sharma
Ishant Sharma, playing his 100th Test for India, struck in his second over to give the hosts an early breakthrough in the third Test against England at the newly renamed Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.
Ishant celebrated his 100th outing in Tests with a lovely delivery outside off to pluck the wicket of Dom Sibley. The England opener edged it to the man at second slip to take it. Rohit Sharma made no mistake as England's scoreboard read 2/1 after the departure of Sibley on a duck.
Earlier, visitors England chose to bat first after winning the toss at the revamped stadium in Motera. England captain Joe Root said that James Anderson, Jofra Archer, Jonny Bairstow and Zak Crawley come back into the team in place of Rory Burns, Dan Lawrence, Moeen Ali and Olly Stone.
India skipper Virat Kohli also announced two changes to the Playing XI as Jasprit Bumrah replaced Mohammed Siraj in the pace unit while all-rounder Washington Sundar came in place of chinaman Kuldeep Yadav.
Kohli said that the hosts would have batted first as well. "We would look to get into the game early on. The practice wickets have been quite spicy," said Kohli.
"Something that we have enjoyed as a team. Bumrah comes in for Siraj and Washington Sundar comes in for Kuldeep Yadav. We wanted to have a spinning option and Washi provides a lot with the bat as well. And having a cushion with the bat helps especially in this situation when we bat second as the game could be evened out after the first innings," he added.
