Moeen Ali scored his fifth Test ton and Joe Root made 88 as England recovered from 21-2 to finish Day One of the fifth Test against India on 284-4 in Chennai.
The Worcestershire man was dropped on zero but made the most of his reprieve to help put England in a good position in the final Test of the series. Joe Root, who practised on a road outside the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Thursday due to Cyclone Vardah putting the regular nets out of use, looked at his fluent best before edging behind 12 short of a 10th Test century.
Alastair Cook won the toss and batted first for the fourth time in the series, becoming the 10th man to go past 11,000 Test runs with a couple off Umesh Yadav’s first ball of the match.
But he lost opening partner Keaton Jennings in the sixth over as the Durham batsman edged a wide ball from Ishant Sharma, in the side for Bhuvneshwar Kumar. Root, who tuned up with Mark Ramprakash on a strip of road outside the ground on Thursday, chopped Umesh Yadav for four to get off the mark, but lost his skipper to Ravindra Jadeja in the 13th over.
After signs of big turn early on, and one LBW shout, Cook edged the left-arm spinner to Virat Kohli at slip and the Indian skipper made no mistake to remove his counterpart for 10. England, at that stage, were in trouble at 21-2.
Moeen was dropped when he tried to whip Jadeja into the legside on nought, KL Rahul unable to cling on at mid-wicket, but gradually grew into his innings, as Root steadily accumulated at the other end. The latter sent the first ball of Amit Mishra’s spell, a drag down, to the fence, and swept through wide mid on a few overs later. The pair went into lunch with England 68-2 and they brought up their 50 partnership shortly after the restart.
Root registered his 27th Test half century with a sweep to the fence and soon after he became the first man to break the 2,500-run barrier across all formats in a calendar year.
Employing the sweep particularly effectively, Root helped take the partnership over 100, after which Moeen came down the track to Mishra to biff the leg spinner over the top for four. He went to a half century soon after, off 111 balls. Root was nearing a 10th Test ton when he was given out on review.
After another sweep, Jadeja and Kohli sent umpire Simon Fry’s not out decision upstairs and an under-edge was visible. Root had to go and the partnership was curtailed on 146.
Jonny Bairstow walked to the crease needing 62 to break Michael Vaughan’s record for Test runs in a calendar year by an Englishman and after a watchful start, collected six of them with a towering straight drive off Jadeja. England were 182-3 at tea, having scored 114 in the session.
Two more sixes followed, the first a slog sweep into the stands off Jadeja, the second another gorgeous lofted drive off Ravi Ashwin. The wicketkeeper had reached 49 by the time he drove uppishly off Jadeja and watched as KL Rahul pouched the catch.
Ben Stokes replaced Bairstow at the crease and eased into his innings with a succession of singles. Moeen got to 99 with a sweet drive through extra cover off Mishra then went to his fifth Test ton the very next ball.
The Worcestershire man took back-to-back boundaries off Sharma once the new ball had been taken and was 120 not out by the close, with Stokes on five.