London, July 21: Rain brought an early stop to the first day’s play of the 100th Test match between England and India being played at Lord’s Cricket Ground. The hosts had made a steady start, posting a total of 127 runs for the loss of two wickets, before bad weather forced the players to get off the field in the 50th over of the day.

MS Dhoni won the toss ahead of the historic 2000th Test match and opted to bowl first. India played Praveen Kumar ahead of S Sreesanth in a three-man pace attack while Stuart Broad pipped Tim Bresnan for a place in the England side.

The hosts were perhaps overly cautious to start proceedings as Alastair Cook and captain Andrew Strauss managed just 19 runs from the first 10 overs. Zaheer Khan then gave India their first breakthrough of the match when he had Cook (12*) trapped lbw bowling from over the wicket. 43 runs later, Zaheer forced a pull shot from Strauss, the left-hander top edging the delivery straight to Ishant Sharma at fine leg. Strauss made 22 off 83 deliveries.

Jonathan Trott enjoyed two lives on the day before he went on to make an unbeaten 58. He was first dropped by Rahul Dravid, the veteran slip-fielder unable to hold on to a sharp, low chance to his right off Harbhajan’s bowling; Trott was only on eight at the time. Then, when Trott had moved on to 32, he edged a delivery from Zaheer Khan, bowling round the wicket – the ball surprisingly escaped both wicketkeeper MS Dhoni and Rahul Dravid.

Despite those dropped chances, India’s worst piece of luck on the day was when Zaheer pulled up mid-way through the 42nd over clutching his hamstring. He immediately went off the field and if the injury proves serious, India will be significantly hampered for the rest of the match and perhaps series.

Kevin Pietersen, unbeaten on 22, had forged a 65-run partnership with Trott when rain made further play impossible.

Brief scores (At end of Day 1): England 1st innings 127/2in 49.2 overs(Jonathan Trott 58*, Kevin Pietersen 22*, Zaheer Khan 2/18)