England crawl to 127/2 at tea courtesy Trott half century

SPORT-IND-LD TEA
 England crawl to 127/2 at tea courtesy Trott half century
       London, Jul 21 (PTI) England batsmen played cautiously to
 reach 127 for two against India at tea on the opening day of
 the historic first cricket Test at the Lord's here on
 Thursday.
       Bad light forced early tea after 49.2 overs were being
 played.
       In-form batsman Jonathan Trott survived a couple of
 chances to remain unbeaten on 58 while Kevin Pietersen, who
 looked pretty uncomfortable against the swing of Zaheer Khan
 and Praveen Kumar, scratched his way to 22.
       The duo put on 65 runs for the undefeated third wicket
 stand. Trott has hit eight boundaries in his 104-ball knock.
       There was some bad news for India as pace spearhead
 Zaheer, who was the pick of the bowlers, left midway through
 his 14th over after pulling a hamstring.
       Zaheer, who had removed both openers Alastair Cook (12)
 and skipper Andrew Strauss (22), was in considerable pain when
 he left the field. It was Praveen who completed the over.
       Although England batsmen never looked in any tearing
 hurry to score the runs, the Indian seamers lacked
 incisiveness despite getting considerable amount of movement.
       After removing Cook with a delivery that came back to
 wrap him on pads, Zaheer again provided the breakthrough in
 the post-lunch session dismissing Strauss.
       The England captain went for an atrocious pull-shot to a
 delivery that was well outside the off-stump only managing a
 top edge in the process. Ishant standing at fine leg held on
 to an easy catch. Strauss, who played 83 balls to hit two
 boundaries, has now been dismissed six times by Zaheer.
       Trott, who reached his seventh Test half century in 107
 balls, was dropped on eight and 32 with Rahul Dravid being the
 guilty party on both occasions. While Harbhajan Singh was the
 bowler during the first dropped chance, it was Zaheer who
 squared up Trott during the second time. PTI AS
 ASR