Lord's: First day's play of the much-anticipated 2000th match in the history of Test cricket was called off due to persistent rain at the Lord's on Thursday.
England were 127/2 when the play was stopped just before tea, with Jonathan Trott (58) and Kevin Pietersen (22) at the wicket.After inspecting the ground on a number of occasions, umpires finally decided to abandon the day's play at 2300 IST.
Earlier in the second session, Trott and Pietersen went about their business without taking any risk, after they lost the wicket of skipper Andrew Strauss (22) straight after lunch.
India got a big jolt when their bowling spearhead Zaheer Khan left the ground after pulling his hamstring.
Zaheer, who had taken both the wickets that fell on day one for the visitors, grimaced in pain before making his way to the pavilion.
Earlier, England made a slow start in their first innings and reached 43/1 at lunch on the opening day.
The home team lost the wicket of Alastair Cook (12) in the 21 overs bowled during the first session of play, with Strauss (20) and Trott (9) at the wicket.
England got off to a sedate start in their innings after MS Dhoni won the toss and decided to field.
Zaheer and Praveen Kumar, as expected, made full use of the overcast conditions by getting the ball move on both sides off the pitch.
England openers, Strauss and Cook, took the innings forward patiently. Strauss survived an early scare when Cook, while on strike, sent his skipper back after calling him for a single. Ishant Sharma, standing at short mid-on, could not hit the stumps.
Zaheer provided India their first breakthrough when he trapped Cook right in front of the wickets. The 32-year-old paceman, after testing the English opener with away-going deliveries, bowled one that snaked into the left-hander, thus surprising him completely.
All the Indian bowlers kept the ball up to the batsmen, to make them drive. Strauss played a very unlike him innings, as his first four came on the 48th ball he faced.
Trott, who has been among runs in the past year so, looked in good touch from the beginning. The right-hander tried to play the Indian bowlers late, to negate the movement they were deriving from the pitch.
But he got a life when Rahul Dravid could not hang on to a catch while diving to his right in the first slip. It was Harbhajan Singh's first ball of the match and Trott was on 9.
Zaheer struck again, this time with the wicket of Strauss, in the session after lunch.
Zaheer, who changed his line and length constantly, got the England skipper to pull a short delivery outside his off stump that landed in the hands of Ishant, fielding at fine leg.
Trott, while batting on 40, got his second life of the day when a Zaheer's good-length ball kissed the outside part of his bat. But Dhoni, instead of going for the catch, let the ball pass for Dravid, who seemed unprepared for it in the first slip.
Meanwhile, Trott, nudged a single to complete his seventh half-century in 89 balls.
Earlier, the Lord's extravaganza finally got underway after a brief rain delay.
The visitors had left out S Sreesanth, Munaf Patel and Yuvraj Singh from their playing eleven while the home team had chosen to go in with Stuart Broad for the contest as Tim Bresnan missed out.
In pics: England vs India, 1st Test, Day 1
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