Rookie mistakes plague England bowling attack

On the basis of how the England spinners have bowled in the first innings so far in the first Test, the signs don't look good for England for rest of the five-match series.

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The lack of experience in the visitor's ranks was thoroughly exposed on Day 2 when greenhorns Tom Hartley and Rehan Ahmed failed to extract much purchase out of the spinfriendly surface. As Ashwin & Co proved on the first day, there is assistance from the pitch if you are a master of the craft.

Targeting them as the weak links, the Indian batters took heavy toll of debutant Hartley and the one-Test-old Rehan.

Hartley got all the backing of his captain Ben Stokes but the leftarm spinner failed to make it count, failing to deliver a single maiden over while leaking 135 runs in 25 overs. The two wickets he picked were thanks to poor shots by Shubman Gill, who holed out to midwicket, and KL Rahul, who picked out deep midwicket off a long hop.

The expectations from Rehan were higher especially after his fine debut performance in Pakistan (seven-wicket haul) but he was listless on the day with figures of 23-3-105-1.