India produced an outstanding display of all-round cricket on Monday to register a huge victory by 151 runs against England in the second Test at Lord’s to take a 1-0 lead in the five-match series. India’s bowlers were impressive both with the bat and the ball to produce a remarkable turnaround for the visiting side after they were left struggling at stumps on the fourth day evening.
Starting the day, India were left with four wickets in hand and with a lead of only 154 runs with England bowlers attacking with a brand-new ball. The home team was looking determined to wrap up the innings for India and score a big victory, and they were well on track in doing so by dismissing India’s most dangerous batsman Rishabh Pant early in the day.
England fast bowler Ollie Robinson got Pant caught behind early on in the day which meant that the end was close for the Indian team as far as their batting innings was concerned. However, the Indian tail had other plans as the pair of Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah got together after Ishant Sharma was also removed from the equation.
The two Indian talent batsmen broke the English spirits in style as Joe Root and his men decided to go over aggressive with their approach, sledging the two batsmen while also attacking them with short balls that were targeted on their bodies. However, none of the tactics shown by the English players had any effect on the Indian pair as they too produced a sensational fightback for their team to add an unbeaten 89-run stand for the ninth wicket which pushed India’s overall lead beyond the 250-run mark.
India eventually set a target of 272 for England to win in 60 overs, and in the end, the home team was bowled out for 120 from 51.5 overs.
While it was clear that India had set England an impossible target, the job was still half done from the visiting side as they still had to take 10 more wickets to win. With the new ball in their hands, Shami and Bumrah both dismissed an opener each for ducks. While Bumrah dismissed Rory Burns, it was Shami who got rid of right-hand opener Dom Sibley.
Joe Root tried to revive the English innings in the company of Haseeb Hameed but Ishant Sharma dismissed the latter, trapping him leg-before in front of the wickets to leave England struggling at 44-3.
Jonny Bairstow also could not trouble the Indian bowlers much as he too was dismissed leg-before by Ishant, and on the other side of the tea break, Bumrah got the big wicket in form of Root, getting him caught by India captain Virat Kohli in the slip cordon for 33.
With half of the side dismissed, the likes of Jos Buttler and Moeen Ali as well as Robinson battled hard but the Indian bowlers were far too good and relentless in their approach on the fifth and final day of the game drew close to an end.
Mohammed Siraj struck twice in as many deliveries to get rid of Moeen and Sam Curran to seal the fate of the contest, which he ended himself when he got Buttler caught behind by Pant and cleaned up James Anderson to help India win the Test and take a 1-0 lead with three matches left in the series.
After the end of the match, India captain Kohli said,
“The pitch didn’t offer much on the first three days. But the way we played in the second innings, under pressure, from Jasprit and Shami was outstanding. We thought with 60 overs to go we could have a crack, and they were outstanding. A bit of tension on the field really motivated us to finish the game.”
The Indian camp celebrated the contribution by Shami and Bumrah with the bat in a special way at Lord’s. Talking about it, Kohli said,
“We wanted to let them know that we appreciated what they did, and they took the new ball and made breakthroughs for us. When we were most successful, our lower order was contributing, we went away from that a bit away from home but they are putting in the hard work with the coaches. The belief and the desire is there, to do the job for the team.”