A fine half-century by opener Murali Vijay helped India reach 106 for one at lunch after Shikhar Dhawan's early fall in the first Test against England at Trent Bridge today.
Electing to bat, India were dealt an early blow with Dhawan caught behind off James Anderson for 12 but Vijay (55 not out) and Cheteshwar Pujara (38 not out) steadied the ship with a 73-run unbeaten stand.
England skipper Alastair Cook tried all his top five bowlers in a hope to get some early assistance on an otherwise placid track with easy pace and bounce for the batsman to score off.
Anderson (1-40) though proved to be the only wicket-taker with the new ball albeit in an expensive opening spell.
Indian captain MS Dhoni, who had no hesitations batting first, was backed by his batsmen on a sunny morning.
The visitors handed a Test debut to all-rounder Stuart Binny, choosing to play five bowlers, and dropping Rohit Sharma to make way for him.
The Karnataka player follows in his father -- former cricketer and also current selector -- Roger Binny's footsteps and the duo became the tenth father-son pair to represent the country in Test cricket.
England too made one change to their eleven from the loss to Sri Lanka at Headingley, bringing in fit-again all-rounder Ben Stokes in place of Chris Jordan.
Vijay then opened the innings with Dhawan (12 runs, 24 balls) as the openers looked to make full use of the favourable batting conditions.
The scoring started with a flurry of boundaries, three of them in the first over itself, as Anderson proved costly in his opening spell of the series. It was a change in roles for the two batsmen, as Vijay was the one off to a flier while Dhawan played carefully and looked to make a solid start.
