England v India 2014: Stuart Broad's 6-for bowls out visitors for 152; India equal world record for most ducks

Stuart Broad

Indian captain MS Dhoni’s decision to bat first on a bowling-friendly wicket after winning the toss on the first day of the fourth Test against England, at Old Trafford, has backfired terribly, with the England seamers, led by Stuart Broad’s 6-for, running through the visitors’ batting line-up to dismiss them for 152.

6 ducks in an innings – 4th time in Test history

With the likes of Murali Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Pankaj Singh getting dismissed for a duck, India have also levelled the world record for the most number of noughts in an innings: 6. Pakistan, against West Indies in 1980; South Africa, against India in 1996; and Bangladesh, against West Indies in 2002, have also faced the ignominy of seeing 6 of their batsmen being dismissed for a duck previously.

On all those three occasions, fast bowlers were the ones to do the damage. While Sylvester Clarke, Colin Croft, Joel Garner and Malcolm Marshall picked up 10 wickets between them in the first instance that initiated the home team’s collapse at Karachi, former Indian fast bowler Javagal Srinath picked up 6 South African wickets to lead the team to a memorable 64-run victory at Ahmedabad. Jermaine Lawson and Vasbert Drakes did the damage against the hosts at Dhaka on the third occasion.

Captain’s knock

India were reduced to 8/4 in the first 5.1 overs with the opening duo taking two wickets each between them , before Dhoni’s 5th and 7th wicket partnerships, which were worth 54 and 66 respectively, with Ajinkya Rahane and Ravichandran Ashwin helped the team cross the three-figure mark. Once Ashwin fell trying to pull a Broad delivery, the fast bowler ran the Indian tail ragged, dismissing the next three wickets for 23 runs. While James Anderson was equally impressive, he should consider himself unlucky not to have more than 3 wickets to his name.

Dhoni was the last to be dismissed, for a 133-ball 71: an innings that saved the face of the Indian team. Earlier in the day, while England went in with an unchanged side, India had three changes: Gautam Gambhir, Ravichandran Ashwin and Varun Aaron in; Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma and Mohammed Shami out.