There is something which impels this Indian cricket team players to bring out their best when their backs are pressed firmly against the wall. Having taken a 1-0 lead at Lord’s with a huge 151-run victory, India did not did not get any chance to resurrect themselves at Headingley after being shot out for an embarrassing 78 on the first day. But at The Oval, Virat Kohli’s team came storming back to record a win that will be remembered for many years to come.
A 157-run thrashing of England at The Oval on Monday was only the third occasion when India won a Test match under the captaincy of Kohli in England, making him the most successful Indian skipper in the Old Blighty while playing the conventional format of the game.
The victory, which gave India an unassailable 2-1 lead in the ongoing five-match series for the Pataudi Trophy, implies that for the first time in 14 years, an Indian cricket team, irrespective of the talent, depth, skills and capabilities it possessed and yet lacked wins, will be returning home from England having not lost the Test series.
Moreover, if India continue to fight the way they have for the majority of this Test series, Kohli & Co will return home having recorded their first series win in England since 2007.
The win, which was completed in a spectacular manner on Monday, was India’s first in last 50 years at this venue, and also only the second time when a touring team from India had recorded more than one Test match victory against England in England, since the Kapil Dev-led team did so in their 2-0 series victory in 1986.
And it all happened on the back of some incredible performances with the ball, highlighted by the fact that India were more assured, better organised and most importantly, more self-believing then any other team could perhaps have been in such a situation.
On a flat pitch which carried absolutely no demons for batsmen and plenty of headaches for all kinds of bowlers, India took inspiration from the words which their eccentric and electric coach Ravi Shastri once thundered: Bhaad me gaya pitch (Let the pitch go to hell)!
The victory was possible because India believe they can turn around games from any situation, because India do not believe in the word called ‘pressure’, because Shastri and Kohli have ingrained in this bunch of players the virtues of being resilient to the core, and because Shastri’s coaching manual has taught them not to look back in the past and get bogged down by what happened. Even if it was as recent as in the previous match. India were coming into this match on the back of a heavy defeat by an innings and 76 runs at Headingley.
The victory was also possible because India were resilient against all odds. There was a little room for India to win after being bowled out for 78 at Leeds. But here, after being bowled out for 191 in the first innings and having conceded a huge lead of 99, India were tasked with the responsibility of batting long and big enough to procure a huge lead against England with plenty of time left in the contest. The third day proved to be decisive for India with the bat as despite losing KL Rahul for cheap, that is for 46, Rohit Sharma’s 127 and Cheteshwar Pujara’s 61 took them to a position of control.
Later on in the fourth day, half-centuries from Shardul Thakur (60) and Rishabh Pant (50) handed India a huge lead of 367 runs in the second innings. Thakur and Pant added 100 runs for the seventh wicket and even India’s tailenders in Umesh Yadav and Jasprit Bumrah provided them with another 50 runs towards the end.
The final day began with England resuming their first-innings resistance at 77 for no loss. The opening pair of Rory Burns (50) and Haseeb Hameed (63) had resumed the proceedings from where they had left last evening. Both Burns and Hamid defended extremely well and rotated the strike at will to keep India at bay for the majority of the first session.
It was Thakur who broke their partnership when he had Burns caught behind after the opener brought up his half-century. And from the second session onwards, India started making their moves toward the eventual win.
Yet, the challenge was different and tougher than what India had faced at any other venue so far in the series. The pitch had not deteriorated enough and batsmen were still getting the ball on to the bat quite easily.
India were patient enough to wait for the ball to get old while they kept working on it to make one side heavier by using their sweat and doing the hard work of shining the it. Once the ball had become heavy enough from one side for Indian seamers’ expertise of reverse swing to set in, Kohli brought on Jasprit Bumrah post lunch, who, produced two outstanding wickets in the form of Ollie Pope (2) and Johnny Bairstow (0) to rock England’s middle-order.
Jadeja had kept targeting the rough made from the foot marks of the bowlers from the end he was bowling from, and he did well to get rid of Moeen Ali, with England slipping from 141/3 to 146/6.
Joe Root tried to resist India’s charge towards a victory in the company of Chris Woakes but India were just too good on the day. The impending loss became a certainity when the England captain played one on to his wickets off Thakur to be dismissed for 36.
Woakes, Ollie Robinson and Craig Overton tried to delay the inevitable but they were not successful in doing so. Umesh Yadav bounced out the last man James Anderson, who took a DRS review which went against the England batsman.
With the series heavily tilted in India’s favour, it will be interesting to see what sort of changes both the teams make for the fifth and final Test to be played at Trafford in Manchester from September 10-14. Reports are suggesting that England’s fast bowling pair of James Anderson and Ollie Robinson looks spent and needs immediate revival, at a time when they are refusing to make use of spin bowling as one of their weapons with the ball. On the other hand, it remains to be seen if Ravichandran Ashwin will finally get a game or not on this tour.
Devarchit Varma is a cricket writer and journalist with an experience of more than a decade, having worked at Hindustan Times (newspaper) and CricketCountry (website). Along with covering international and domestic cricket, he has also interviewed several current and former top players such as Rohit Sharma, Steve Smith, Dale Steyn, Michael Hussey, Jacques Kallis, Brendon McCullum, Shane Watson, Lasith Malinga and many more. He has also worked in other beats as a journalist in Bollywood (Reliance BigOye) and IT (SiliconIndia) industries.
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