England opener Ben Duckett was surprised by Indian openers coming out all guns blazing in the final session of Day 1 but rues DRS call not going their way. Duckett feels that Tom Hartley had trapped Shubman Gill in front of the stumps and the ball was not supposed to go over the stumps as shown by the ball-tracking technology ‘Hawkeye’.
“It feels like a tricky pitch to start on. Shubman there, we could have had him there. It looked like a dead lbw and somehow, it's bouncing over the stumps. It's one of those things. We'll stick to our mantra and that's taking wickets and looking to be positive. Hopefully, that will happen for us as well,” Duckett told the reporters after the day’s play.
Gill was still new to the crease when he got a reprieve. Hartley from around the stumps darted one into the wicket. Gill went half-forward to block but the ball beat the inside edge and hit him on the front pad. England players appealed but the on-field umpire gave him not out.
As Hartley and the fielders were confident, captain Ben Stokes opted for the review. The ball-tracking technology showed that the ball would have gone over the stumps. As a result, England lost all their reviews in just one session. Gill had scored just a single then. He remained unbeaten for 14 off 43 deliveries at the end of day's play.
Duckett lauded Indian openers for the attacking approach and said that the reason behind it is the deteriorating pitch in Hyderabad.
"Credit to them. They played really well and were very attacking. You know, they don't always go about it like that. So, to go about it that way it shows that they probably think the pitch is going to get quite a bit worse," he said.
Interestingly, the left-handed batter also feels that the score of 246 posted by England is above par.
"I think we're over par. It was a tricky Day 1 pitch with consistent spin from earlier on. Stokes was fantastic. I just said come down Day 3, Day 4, that could be a match winning knock if that pitch keeps getting harder to bat on," he said.
The 29-year-old also defended his teammates using sweep and reverse sweeps.
"We weren't reckless today. I thought we played well at times and people who normally strike at 150 were dug in and rotated pretty well."
"We're trying to be positive and when you get a bit of pace on the ball, we're going to go even harder. But yeah, they bowled some very nice balls and I reckon I probably could have nicked off about 15 times.
"I missed them and then put the bat ball away, so yeah, really happy with how we started it," he added.
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