Harsha Bhogle calls out England batsmen for dismal batting performance in first innings

Veteran commentator-cum-cricket expert Harsha Bhogle has expressed disappointment at England's poor batting performance in their first innings of the crucial fourth and final Test against India at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. The visitors bottled it completely despite the coin landing in skipper Joe Root's favour on Thursday morning who had no hesitation in batting first.

'Below par': Harsha Bhogle

Taking to the micro-blogging site, the 'Voice of Indian Cricket' wrote that 205 is more than England have managed in recent times but this (referring to the visitors' dismal batting performance in the ongoing contest) is below par on the surface as it is playing now.

. Even the netizens had a say on this matter and while most of them completely agreed with the versatile cricket pundit, there were others who had their opinions as well. Here are some of the reactions.

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England suffer a batting collapse yet again

Even though Root had called it right at the toss, his batsmen including himself could not capitalise on their chances as they ended up losing wickets at regular intervals. Apart from star all-rounder Ben Stokes (55), and, Dan Lawrence (46), none of the other batsmen could make much of an impact on what seemed to be a good batting surface as most of them failed to breach the three-figure mark and were eventually bundled out for 205 in the 76th over.

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The Indian spinners did much of the damage with Ashwin, Patel, and, Washington Sundar sharing eight wickets apiece. Axar Patel was once again the pick of the bowlers for the hosts with figures of 4/68 from his 26 overs while 'Ash' finished with 3/47 from his 19.5 overs.

In reply, India have lost the wicket of opener Shubman Gill for a duck after he was caught plumb in front of the wicket by veteran pacer James Anderson in the very first over as the scorecard reads 4/1. 

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