Nottingham: Indian pacers and England all-rounder Stuart Broad turned out to be the stars of day one of the second Test at Trent Bridge on Friday. While three wickets each by Ishant Sharma, Praveen Kumar and S Sreesanth helped India dismiss the hosts for 221, Broad's 64 runs rescued England from a precarious 124/8 on a day when the ball swung the whole day.
India then came out to negotiate a tricky 15-over period to end the day at 24/1, with Rahul Dravid (7 not out) and VVS Laxman (13 not out) at the crease.
Earlier, Sharma and Sreesanth got India off to a dream start by taking one wicket apiece in the first hour of play to back MS Dhoni's decision to bowl first.
Sharma opened the bowling with Kumar in the absence of Zaheer Khan who failed to recover from his hamstring injury to play the second Test.
An overcautious start by the England openers led to the downfall of Alastair Cook (2) who, after surviving the first close shout against Sharma, was given out lbw on the second one against the same bowler.
Sreesanth, brought in as first change, was hit for a four by Strauss off the very first ball of his return to Test cricket. But he more than made up for it by taking out England No. 3 Jonathan Trott (4), who edged an outswinger straight to VVS Laxman in the slips, in the same over.
Kevin Pietersen then strode in to join his skipper in the middle with the score at 23 for two.
Pietersen chose to kick-start aggressively and took over from where he left at Lord's by dispatching Sreesanth to the boundary twice in the same over.
But Indian bowlers failed to make anymore breakthroughs as England sailed to relatively safer shores with their two most experienced batters still at the crease, having added 46 runs for the third wicket.
The second session began on the similar happy note as the first one for India, with the swing of Indian bowlers accounting for the dangerous Pietersen, (29) well-set Strauss (32), scratchy Eoin Morgan (0) and an in-form Matt Prior (1) in the space of 19 runs.
The break may have undid Pietersen's concentration as he edged a Sreesanth delivery in the first over after the break straight to Suresh Raina in the slips.
Kumar, brought back after lunch, then got one to shape away from the England skipper, who was sucked into a drive and only managed to knick it to Raina for his second catch of the day.
The joy for Kumar and India doubled when the Indian pacer dismissed Morgan lbw in the same over.
Sreesanth continued to impress and was unplayable under the seaming, swinging conditions. He didn't take too long to take his third wicket of the day when a jaffer opened Prior up and the edge was safely pouched by Dravid. That left England reeling at 88/6.
Prior's catch also became Dravid's 400th international catch of his distinguished career.
England could have been seven down soon after but Dravid failed to latch onto a catch offered by Bell off Kumar.
Subsequently, Tim Bresnan and Bell started settling and took the England score past 100. However, they could stretch their partnership only as far as 29 runs when Sharma came back to remove Bresnan (11).
Sharma delivered another telling blow minutes before Tea when the hosts' last hope Bell was sent back into the hut.
After doing all the hard work to score 31 runs, Bell poked at one outside the off-stump and the snick landed straight into Dhoni's gloves to end the second session with England tottering at 124/8.
But the English all-rounders Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann came out attacking after Tea to put off the Indian seamers. The duo used the long handle to good effect, hitting a number of boundaries in quick succession.
Unlike their top order, Broad and Swann didn't hold themselves back and hit over the field as the Indian pacers lost their line and length, bowling short instead of up to the tailenders.
Subsequently, from 124/8, the duo added 73 runs and took the England score to 197 when a rising Kumar delivery forced Swann (28 off 35) to take an evasive action. The ball touched his glove to pop up for a simple catch to Abhinav Mukund in the gully.
Meanwhile, Broad continued to have a good time and went on to complete his half century in just 56 balls.
But Harbhajan put an end to India's misery as Broad's splendid knock ended at 64 when he tried to hoick the Indian off-spinner over mid-wicket, only to hit as far as Sachin Tendulkar in the deep.
India came out after the 10-minute break to negotiate a tricky one-hour period with a new opening pair as Dravid accompanied Mukund in the absence of injured Gautam Gambhir, who was replaced by Yuvraj Singh for this Test.
However, the visitors got off to the most inauspicious start when Mukund slashed the first ball of the Indian innings straight to Pietersen standing at gully, giving James Anderson and England a perfect start.
Dravid and Laxman then buckled down to prevent any further damage.
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