England openers make solid start

Mumbai, Mar 18 (UNI) Openers Andrew Strauss and Ian Bell gave their side a solid start as England reached 63 for one at lunch on the first day of the third and final Test against India after being put into bat at the Wankhede stadium here today.

England, who are already 1-0 down in the three Test series, need to win here to square the series. At break, Strauss with 35 and Owais Shah with seven were at the crease.

The injury-hit England side, who lost Steve Harmison due to a shin injury lost opener Alastair Cook who was also ruled out due to a stomach ailment, thus giving Owais Shah his first Test cap.

Strauss and Bell began confidently against the three pronged pace attack and though Irfan Pathan and S Sreesanth beat the bat on few occasions the batsmen had no trouble on a wicket which played easy.

Strauss began confidently stroking a superb straight drive of Pathan. Bell at the other end preferred to play himself in and once again gained in confidence as the ball got old.

The spinners brought into the attack inside the first hour also did not have any impact as Strauss played some lovely shots on the off side.

However, just when it looked like the two would take England to lunch without the loss of a wicket, Bell tried to cut Sreesanth and played uppishly straight to point where Harbhajan Singh made no mistake at all.

Debutant Owasis Shah started confidently on a perfect batting wicket as England looked like making India pay for their decision of putting the opposition in after winning the toss.

Earlier, England made three changes to their side from Mohali, bringing in Owasis Shah, off spinner Shaun Udal and pace bowler James Anderson for Alastair Cook, Liam Plunkett and Steve Harmison, while India brought in fit again pacer S Sreesanth in place of rookie leg spinner Piyush Chawla.

Meanwhile, for India, captain Rahul Dravid joined a select group of Indian players to have played 100 Test matches, with the others being Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Dilip Vengsarkar and Anil Kumble.

Sachin Tendulkar also added another record to his name by overtaking Kapil Dev to become the most capped Indian player with this being his 132nd Test match.

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