England beat India by 227 runs in the first Test to take a 1-0 lead in the four-match series thanks to the excellent performance of captain Joe Root and the bowlers.
In the match played in Chennai, England won the toss and elected to bat first, which was vindicated by captain Joe Root.
The English captain played a 218-run innings, scoring a Bill Centurion, thanks to which England scored 218 in the first innings, Dom Sibley 87 and Ben Stokes 82.
For India, Ravi Chandran Eshwan and Jaspreet Bumrah took three wickets each while Ishant Sharma and Shahbaz Nadeem took two wickets each.
In reply, the Indian team lost four wickets for 73 runs, but thanks to the half-centuries of Chattiswar Pujara, Reshabh Pant and Washington Sundar, the Indian team managed to score 337 runs.
Pant scored 91, Sundar 85 and Pujara 73 while Dom Base was the most successful bowler for England with 4 wickets.
Despite taking a huge lead, England did not follow on and preferred to bat in the second innings.
In the second innings, the entire English team piled up 178 runs in an attempt to bat fast, Root scored 40 runs and remained the most successful batsman while Ashwin took 6 wickets.
England gave India a target of 420 runs to win the match and before the end of the fourth day, the Indian team lost the services of Rohit Sharma.
When the fifth day’s play began, India were shocked at the start of the day when veteran Chattiswar Pujara became the second wicket of a single after scoring 15 runs.
After taking two wickets for 58 runs, captain Virat Kohli came to support Shabman Gul and together they took the score to 92. Gul scored a half century while maintaining his excellent form.
The LBW’s strong appeal against Gill on James Anderson’s ball at the 92-run total was rejected by the field umpire and the umpires survived the call despite the review.
The umpires were not needed on the next ball and Anderson’s beautiful in-swing scattered Shabman Gul’s wickets. The Indian team had not yet recovered from the loss when two balls later Anderson bowled Rahane on another beautiful ball to give India a fourth loss.
The Australian tour hero Pant could not play a big innings in the second innings and in the face of Anderson’s experience, he looked helpless when the wicket-keeper-batsman could not understand a slow ball and caught a fielder standing on short cover while Sundar Even without opening an account.
After losing 6 wickets, Ashwin came to support captain Kohli and both of them added 54 runs for the seventh wicket. Ashwin was dismissed for 9 runs.
India’s last hope of drawing the match was dashed when Ben Stokes moved 72-run Kohli.
India’s entire team was bowled out for 192 in the second innings and England won by 227 runs to take a 1-0 lead in the series.
Joe Root, who scored a double century, was named the best player of the series.