Chennai (PTI): England made a slow but steady start, scoring 63 without loss in 27 overs in an uneventful morning session on the opening day of their first cricket Test against India in Chennai on Thursday.
Electing to bat after winning the toss, England openers Alastair Cook and Andrew Strauss adapted to the slow track which offered little for the fast bowlers in front of a moderate working day crowd that thronged the stadium braving the unprecedented police security.
At the lunch break, Strauss and Cook were on identical 31 after facing 80 and 82 balls respectively.
Starting the match after observing two minutes of silence by players of both the teams and match officials, besides wearing black arm bands in memory of the Mumbai terror attack victims, the left handed openers struck three boundaries each for their identical 31 to give England a steady start.
They made their intentions clear by not taking any risk and rarely stepping out to both new ball bowlers, Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma.
Zaheer and Ishant could not extract any swing and movement on the air on a slow track even though they made the England openers hard to score runs.
Even the two spinners -- Harbhajan Singh and Amit Sharma -- got little help from the Chepauk pitch. Harbhajan, who was brought in for Zaheer, in the ninth over of the innings, gave fours runs -- all to fine leg -- in his first over.
Strauss and Cook were cautious in their approach. The duo could not score more than two runs an over in the first hour which saw only one hit to the boundary -- in the sixth over.