England’s batting coach Marcus Trescothick has termed the Indian bowling attack “the most potent” after the home team folded for 183 on the opening day of the first Test on Wednesday. India’s four-man pace attack took the last six England wickets for just 45 runs as the hosts ended their innings in 65.4 overs. Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami took seven wickets between them, while Shardul Thakur took the prized scalp of English skipper Joe Root after earning a surprise call this morning. “They’re probably the most potent in comparison to where they’ve been for a few years,” Trescothick said during the virtual media interaction after the day’s play.
“They have a lot of bases covered. When they needed certain wickets you can just see the guys who were not playing in the season. You know how much quality they have all sorts of good stuff of red ball bowlers currently.”
“You know, they don’t get to be in the World Test Championship final for no reason. They play home and away and of course they’ve got to have facts to back that up.
“I think a lot of people watched that when they went to Australia and how well they performed over there, so it’s no surprise to us.”
For England, skipper Joe Root once again looked a notch above the others, top-scoring with 64.
“It’s just challenging. We know that it’s a real contest. And we’ve got to raise our game, to be able to match up against their skills and we have that ability is just making sure we do it better than essentially what we’ve done today,” he said.
“We’ve got to just keep making sure that we remain positive about what goes on. Today’s not the ideal day of course.
“But, you know that doesn’t sort of define how the rest of the game is going to go or how the rest of the series is going to go.
“We will go back this evening and then come back and find a way to try and get back in the game,” he said, vowing to come back stronger. England were coming on the back of a T20I series and played their last Test against New Zealand before the WTC final.
“Often you go into Test match series knowing that you’ll be coming off the back of a white ball competition and that’s just the way International cricket is. You’ve got to find your ways and international players to make that work.
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“I think, scheduling is always an issue. Trying to get the balance right for the batter’s moving into Test series, of course you would want them to have played a certain red ball cricket going into it.
“But, of course, we don’t want to use it as an excuse. We’d love to get more time bowling with the red ball, facing the red ball and the preparation.”
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