Twitter erupts as Hardik Pandya's maiden five-wicket haul breaks England's back

Hardik Pandya's took five wickets in his first five overs

On the second day morning, the English bowlers were able to take the last four Indian wickets within 40 minutes after the start of the play. They went on to have a wicketless first session in which they scored 46 runs in just 9 overs.

After the lunch break, Ishant Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah got the wickets of the openers, and Ishant followed it up with the wicket of the young Ollie Pope in the twentieth over.

Just when England captain Joe Root, and Jonny Bairstow were trying to stabilise the innings, Kohli introduced Hardik Pandya. The all-rounder got the wicket of Joe Root off his first delivery of the day. That wicket marked the start of a fiery spell which spelt doom for the English team. Bowling at the other end, Shami also eased things up a little by picking up the wicket of Ben Stokes.

After the first wicket, Hardik Pandya went onto pick up two wickets each in his fourth and fifth overs and ended with five wickets. In his fourth over. he got the wickets of a settled Bairstow and Chris Woakes. In the very next over, he sent Adil Rashid and Stuart Broad to the pavilion and claimed his maiden five-wicket haul.

Hardik Pandya's Spell:

W 2 0 0 0 4 | Wd 0 0 0 1 0 0 | 4 0 0 0 0 4 | W 0 4 4 0 W | W 0 0 0 W 0 | 0 0 2 0 1 0

After the completion of Pandya's spell, Jasprit Bumrah ended the English innings by taking the wicket of Jos Buttler, who's counter-attacking game helped England add 33 runs for the last wicket. Thanks to Pandya's spell, India ended up with a lead of 168 in the first innings.

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In addition to praising Hardik Pandya, Twitter also took a jibe at Micheal Holding, who recently expressed his views on Pandya's place in the XI as an all-rounder.

"The [Indian] attack has not been the right balance. Apparently they are playing Hardik Pandya as an all-rounder to help out with the bowling. When he bowls he isn't as effective as he should be.

If he was a good batsman, if he was getting runs - 60s, 70s, not even regular hundreds - at the number at which he bats and then he bowls and gets two or three wickets, happy, hallelujah. Happy with that. But he is not getting the amount of runs that can then allow him to get a wicket or two in the Test match. That doesn't work."

Talking about Pandya's pedigree as a Test bowler, Holding stated "I don't think he does a lot with the ball. That is number one. He is not consistent. He does not have the control that puts batsmen under pressure constantly."

Sunil Gavaskar and Harbhajan Singh also faced some slack after voices their opinion against Hardik Pandya, the all-rounder.

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Here are the Twitter reactions to Hardik Pandya's ferocious spell: