Jaiswal leads India's bright start at Edgbaston with 62*

Yashasvi Jaiswal's bright half-century drove India to 98 for 2 in a shared morning session on Day 1 of the second Test at Edgbaston. In a session of two halves, Chris Woakes with his probing opening spell was unfortunate to finish with just one wicket against his name, whereas Jaiswal and Karun Nair eased up a lot of that pressure with a solid stand of 80 thereafter. However, Brydon Carse brought England back at the stroke of Lunch with the wicket of the latter.

In overcast conditions at the start of the day, unchanged England invited India to bat first. The visitors had made wholesale changes with both all-rounders Nitish Reddy and Washington Sundar coming in to add batting depth, in place of Sai Sudharsan and Shardul Thakur, while Akash Deep replaced Jasprit Bumrah, who was rested, despite a week-long gap since the Test series opener in Leeds.

England's new-ball bowlers, especially Woakes, got the ball to nip and there was some extra bounce early in the session but the hosts had only one wicket to show for it. Woakes found himself at the receiving end of two turned-down LBW appeals and both were referred upstairs only for the batters to survive on umpire's call. First was Jaiswal who got forward to defend a good length delivery that nipped in, but the ball tracking found it to be barely just clipping the top of the stumps. Soon after, off a similar delivery, Woakes was convinced after hitting Karun Nair on the back pad as the batter offered no shot. But the bowler was left fuming once again to not have the on-field call in his favour when the ball-tracking reprieved the batter by the slimmest of margins on wickets.

In between those two close calls, Woakes did earn his reward for disciplined bowling and thoroughly testing KL Rahul on both edges. The Indian opener, tentative since the start of the innings, eventually chopped one back onto his stumps to fall for two after facing 26 deliveries.

Once Woakes was taken off, India's second-wicket pair found frequent ways to release the built-up pressure. Nair quickly moved on from his LBW call with the help of a few half-volleys dished out to him by Josh Tongue that he happily drove through the covers every time. That sublime touch rubbed off on Jaiswal too at the other end as the opener grew in confidence in the second hour and cashed in on the wayward bowling by Tongue to put on display an array of drives.

England resorted to the short-ball ploy soon enough, and Jaiswal took on Tongue with hooks and pulls to fetch three boundaries on the trot in an over, completing his 11th Test half-century with the second of those. Nair, however, wasn't so lucky. Six minutes before Lunch, Carse got one to jump at him and as Nair put his bat up to fend it, he sent a dolly to second slip where Harry Brook made no mistake.

Brief scores: India 98/2 (Yashasvi Jaiswal 62; Chris Woakes 1-15, Brydon Carse 1-14) vs England