IND vs ENG: Ashwin becomes first spinner in more than 100 years to achieve special feat

India vs England, 1st Test: Ravichandran Ashwin, throughout the course of play on day four, made sure the visitor never got too much time to settle in the middle.

Ravichandran Ashwin celebrates the wicket of Rory Burns with skipper Virat Kohli.

India all-rounder Ravichandran Ashwin picked up six wickets on Monday, to register his 28th five-wicket haul in Tests.

The host, in the first session of day four at the M. A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, could only score 337 in reply to England's humongous first innings total of 578. With England skipper deciding not to enforce the follow-on, the India bowlers had a testing innings at hand.

However, Ashwin made sure that the visitor never got too much time to settle in the middle as he got rid of opener Rory Burns off the very first delivery. With that dismissal, Ashwin became the first spinner in more than 100 years to get a wicket off the first ball of an innings. While former South Africa cricketer Bert Vogler was the last one to do it in 1907, the first spinner ever to achieve the feat was former England bowler Bobby Peel in 1888.

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The Tamil Nadu bowler followed that up with the wicket of Dom Sibley in the last ball of the 11th over.

The 34-year-old later also dismissed the dangerous all-rounder Ben Stokes, making this the eighth occasion on which the Indian spinner got the better of the Englishman in Test cricket.

Ashwin returned to clean up the lower order, pocketing the wickets of Dom Bess, Jofra Archer and James Anderson to restrict England to 178. This, additionally, is Ashwin's fourth five-wicket haul against England and his third at his home venue. He has now overtaken former England all-rounder Ian Botham to go eighth on the list of bowlers with the most fifers.