Rahul Bhattacharya snapshots England's latest debutant:

You might look back at the toss as the most pivotal moment of the opening day of this drenching Test but for the most thrilling incident there was a dot ball shortly before lunch on Saturday.

On strike was England's newest No3 - so new, in fact, he had not an inkling of his Test debut until he was on the bus to the stadium. In walking out, taking guard and dealing with his first couple of deliveries, Owais Shah had already expended more nervous energy than, say, Inzamam-ul-Haq, might do over a century. Now, still on a duck, facing Harbhajan Singh's off-spin for the first time, Shah thundered down the track in the noon heat and drove with withering power to mid-off for no run. Having put a bemused Harbhajan off his length, and game, Shah skipped back next ball and cut for four with the thumping reverb of a bass line on wood. If the display stunned members of Duncan Fletcher's "forward press" school, it was not in the least surprising for John Emburey, Shah's coach at Middlesex. "Surprised? Not a bit," laughed Emburey, in Mumbai on a pre-season tour with Middlesex. "He does that all the time to spinners - especially first up." Shah himself relived the moment with casual assertiveness. "There's a reason I'm playing Test cricket," he said, and added as an afterthought, "and so is Harbhajan."