Ben Duckett says England will continue to back spinner Tom Hartley, despite the debutant’s struggle with the ball on day one of the First Test against India.
Hartley was handed his first Test cap as part of a spin-heavy lineup for the series opener in Hyderabad, and contributed a handy 23 from 24 balls batting at No9 as England posted a first innings total of 246.
Things did not go quite so swimmingly with the ball, however, as the left-armer’s first delivery in Test cricket was hammered into the stands by Yashasvi Jaiswal.
The Indian opener, who finished the day unbeaten on 76 from just 70 balls, continued to target Hartley, whose nine overs on day one eventually cost 63 runs.
The 24-year-old was something of a surprise call-up for the tour, having played only 20 first-class matches, with 40 wickets to his name at a modest average of 36.57.
England hope, however, that his attributes - including a much-discussed high release point - will prove effective on Indian pitches and team-mate Duckett is confident he will be afforded plenty more opportunity to prove his worth.
“Firstly, it was incredible to see the way he went out and batted,” Duckett said. “He went out with freedom and got off the mark, hit [Ravichandran] Ashwin over mid-on.
"They played him really well. They were positive and it looked like they were going to put him under pressure, but he nearly took a pole at the end.
"But you know what [Ben] Stokesy’s like. He's going to throw him the ball tomorrow and back him all day, and hopefully gets a few poles.”
Duckett’s brisk partnership of 55 with Zak Crawley had seen England make a confident start after winning the toss and choosing to bat, but wobbles either side of lunch left the tourists needing Stokes’s 70 to reach what appeared a par score.
With Jaiswal in imperious form, however, India reached stumps on 119 for one and England will need early wickets on Friday to prevent the home side building a sizeable first-innings lead.
“Our mantra is always looking to take wickets, forget about the runs at times and always trying to attack,” Duckett added.
"When we batted, we saw that things can happen quite fast, so hopefully that will happen and we'll try to get a good lead on them and then bowl them out last innings."
