Yashasvi Jaiswal maintained his aggression despite being tested by the England pacers while Karun Nair showed promise at number three before being dismissed late in the session as India reached 98 for two at lunch on day one of the second Test here on Wednesday.
Considering the overhead conditions, Stokes opted to bowl but Jaiswal and Nair did well to survive the tough period. In the first hour, KL Rahul (2 off 26), played on to the stumps off a Chris Woakes delivery before Jaiswal-Nair duo added 80 for the second wicket.
Brydon Carse got one to rise sharply minutes before lunch, inducing an outside edge off Nair's bat that went to Harry Brook at second slip.
There was not a lot of swing but the ball seamed a fair bit in the first hour of play. Carse targeted Jaiswal’s rib cage often but the southpaw was unscathed.
Jaiswal began with a couple of cover drives off Carse, who purposely bowled full to the batter and mixed it up an odd short ball into the body. Besides the flowing drives, the southpaw also played the pull and a slap over backward point off Ben Stokes.
Nair, moved up three places in the batting order from the last game, was offered plenty of full balls from the England pacers and he duly obliged by driving it through the cover and straight boundary.
Before toss, the boundary ropes being brought in significantly caught the eye of many at Edgbaston. With premier match winner Jasprit Bumrah rested from the game, India brought in Akash Deep in his place while making two interesting changes, leaving out Sai Sudharsan for Washington Sundar and replacing Shardul Thakur with Nitish Kumar Reddy.
Kuldeep Yadav was once again ignored as India picked a second spinner in batting all-rounder Washington. For a team that struggled to take 20 wickets at Leeds, the decision to shore up the batting was debatable.