London: Jasprit Bumrah teamed up with Ravindra Jadeja to decimate England by 157 runs in the fourth Test as India took a 2-1 lead in the five-match series, here on Monday.
The hosts were chasing a tough target of 368.
Bumrah (22-9-27-2) and Jadeja (30-11-50-2) hit England with such ferocity that a batsman of Joe Root’s (36 off 78 balls) stature looked dumbfounded at the other end with the kind of distress that his fellow batters were in.
Virat Kohli, winning captain, said, ‘Well, I think the best thing about both the games has been the character the team has showed. We are not looking to survive in this game, we are here to win. Really proud of the character the team has showed. I said at Lord’s as well, I am proud of the character shown by the team, this is amongst the top three bowling performances I have witnessed as India captain. It’s quite relative what you call flat. The conditions were hot and we knew were in with an opportunity when Jadeja was bowling into the rough. The bowlers were good with the reverse swing today. We believed we could get all 10 wickets, we had the belief. As soon as the ball started reversing, Bumrah said give me the ball. He bowled that spell and swung the game in our favour with those two huge wickets. I think you pointed his performance. Rohit’s innings was fantastic. What Shardul has done in this game stands out. His two fifties deflated the opposition. I think he batted well in both the innings. We never go towards analysis, statistics and numbers. We know what we need to focus on and we take a collective decision as a group. It’s unfortunate (Ravi Shastri and co) they are not here. Everyone is happy with the win. It gives us more motivation to win the next Test. We have the belief, we are just looking forward to the opportunities. Whatever the noise’s on the outset, it doesn’t bother us. The fans have been amazing as well.’
Joe Root, losing captain said, ‘It’s frustrating, thought we’ll get something from the game today, we had an opportunity of winning a Test match. The opening partnership was outstanding, credit to India, they got the ball to reverse. I thought Bumrah’s spell was the real turning point of the game. From our side, we’ll have to look at other areas where we missed opportunities, maybe we should have made more of an advantage with the first-innings lead and should have taken the chances that were offered. We always look to get better, he’s (on Bumrah) a superb bowler and at times we need to be realistic and accept that he bowled really well, that was world-class bowling. Have to manage better if we’re in a similar situation in the near future, especially our game against reverse swing. Whenever we lose a game, we can always look back at the toss, we can always think about a few things and the way it happened, but at the end of the day, we need to be ruthless, should have got more than a 100-run lead. We needed that big hundreds, big partnerships – we need to play good cricket right around in Old Trafford, can’t get complacent and get those big runs which sets up the game, which we did a week ago (in Headingley). You can pick out individuals, but need to work collectively as a batting group. Having got starts, you have to make those 20-30 runs count. Yesterday was a difficult day, some difficult chances (on Burns’s drop at slip), it’s very difficult at times, we need to know which ones to go to and keep taking our chances. It’s not about the lack of effort, not about the lack of work, we just need to keep raising our slip catching standards. Woody is coming good, that’s promising. It’s been frustrating with the number of injuries that we have to contend with, but we can’t get away with that. We’ll have one big push going ahead at OT, injuries are something we need to manage, the guys have been excellent, they’ll go out and play next week in Old Trafford and I’m proud of their effort.’
Man of the Match Rohit Sharma said, ‘I wanted to be on the field as much as I could. That hundred was special. We know how important was the second innings. Virat just mentioned the effort from the batsmen, and as a unit it was really important. It’s my first overseas hundred. Really glad that I could get the team into an important position. The three-figure mark wasn’t in my mind, we knew the pressure on the batting unit so we kept our heads down and batted the situation. Once we got the lead, we just wanted to put pressure on the bowlers. I try to contribute for the team, it’s important for me. I know the importance of opening the innings. I am glad I could make it count. It’s always important to embrace the challenge, it’s not going to be easy. Back in Durham we had time off to look at our training and technique and after the World Test Championship final we had 20-25 days, that was a real game-changer. Looks (his injury) good at the moment, the message from the physio is that we got to assess every minute.’