The India A squad has arrived in England to play the Lions, with the first unofficial first-class game taking place at the St Lawrence Ground, Canterbury. It is the England Lions who won the toss and chose to bowl and have already got two successful breakthroughs in India A skipper and Yashasvi Jaiswal early on the opening session of the match.

There were a lot of high hopes on the two openers, with Easwaran being one of the most experienced batters in first-class cricket and being one of the top performers in red-ball cricket for India. The India A skipper was the first to get dismissed trying to work a full in-swinging delivery from Josh Hull that angled towards the mid-on. The 29-year-old Bengal batter was trapped in front of the wickets and was straight away adjudged Leg Before Wicket (lbw) by the umpire.

The dismissal of Yashasvi Jaiswal was disappointing as he was caught edging a delivery outside off stump by Eddie Jack, playing a rash shot which ended up going into the hands of the keeper. While Easwaran was struggling to get going and was finally dismissed for just eight of 17 deliveries, Jaiswal was looking settled on a score of 24 of 55 deliveries, before throwing his wicket away. This was not the start the India A side wanted in their first game in England.

Though the openers failed to give the India A side a much-needed start, the next two batters in the form of Sarfaraz Khan and Karun Nair seemed to steady the innings under pressure. The two batters have put on 35 off 61 for the third wicket at the stroke of lunch and are keeping the runs flowing in the first innings.

At the time of writing, the India A score after the first session is 86-2 with Sarfaraz batting on 17 off 31 deliveries and Karun Nair on a score of 26 off 60 deliveries. The two will want to keep scoring runs in the next session and make sure they set a great platform for a big first innings score.