Jennings scores ton on debut to put England on top

Jennings, who replaced injured Haseeb Hameed, showed no nerves and took full advantage of a dropped catch, to remain unconquered on 103 in England's total of 196 for two at tea.

Jennings became only the 13th batsman from his adopted country to make a hundred on debut as the tourists moved on from their lunch score of 117 for one by adding 79 runs in the middle session.

The other unbeaten batsman was Moeen Ali (25) who had come in at the fall of Joe Root (21), only success for the hosts in the second session after they had dismissed rival captain Alastair Cook (46) in the pre-lunch period.

Root was sent back by Ravichandran Ashwin through a smart catch at slip by home team captain Virat Kohli after Cook had been stumped by stumper Parthiv Patel off left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja.

At tea, the unbroken third-wicket partnership between the tall Johannesburg-born left-hander Jennings, son of renowned coach Trevor, and Ali, was worth 60 in 142 balls.

Jennings played some audacious reverse sweeps too, including when on the cusp of his landmark, to reach the hundred in 186 balls and laced with 12 fours.

India tasted early success in the second session before the visitors took a firmer grip. Indian bowlers, especially Ashwin, kept the England batsmen in a tight leash after lunch.

Ashwin, changing ends, bowled a fine 11-over second spell for 21 by extracting turn and bounce and also got rid of danger-man Root as the batsman edged a ball and Kohli moved to his left to pick up the low catch.

Jadeja kept it tight at the other end in an eight-over spell on either side of lunch that also gave India the breakthrough before the break when Cook had a rush of blood and came out to slog the left arm spinner and was easily stumped.

However, Jayant Yadav was hit for two fours by the grown-in-confidence Jennings to prompt Kohli to bring on medium pace at the other end.

Just before the end of the third hour’s play umpire Paul Reiffel, standing at square leg, had to leave the field off freak injury, hit on the back of the head by a lobbed throw from deep square leg by Bhuvneshwar Kumar. 

The incident happened in the 49th over and third umpire Marias Erasmus took over Reiffel’s duties, while C Shamsuddin took over the latter’s position indoors.

India had a chance to dismiss Moeen when he slashed at Umesh Yadav but the hot chance could not be converted by a diving Kohli at second slip and the ball raced to the boundary. Batsman was on 13 then.