If you play like this, how will you win, one has to admit that Team India gave up in a way in the fifth and final Test played against England at Edgbaston. It did not seem that Team India was maintaining a 2-1 lead at one time. While we conquered Lord’s and the Oval, England beat Team India by an innings at Leeds and now their champion style was visible in their seven-wicket victory. The work that Team India did in the first innings, but everything turned upside down in the second. During this, the Indian bowling was shattered and in the second inning the Indian batsmen also laid down their weapons.
On the fourth day it seemed that the Indian bowling attack was dependent only on Bumrah. On the fifth and final day, in front of Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root’s impeccable style, it seemed that the Indian bowling had forgotten to bowl. He was not able to bowl according to where the field was set. Shardul Thakur who is known for swing and late movement was completely off colour. Root made Siraj a complete child. His outside off-stump deliveries were going too much outside. Had he been getting swung, we could have defended him by saying that he is unable to control the ball. But how can he defend short balls on his leg-stump? Shami bowled a few good deliveries but in the second innings he also proved to be ineffective most of the occasions. The question is where is his seam movement?
Team India put such a field in this match that in a way we gave them continuous freedom to take singles. Especially Joe Root took full advantage of this. Most of the bowlers not putting leg slips for middle and leg balls and hitting two midwickets shows that there was a mistake in our planning itself. Ravindra Jadeja is wreaking havoc with the bat but in the bowling, he did not get the turn even around Jack Leach. He was asked to take advantage of the rough patch on the leg side, in which he failed completely.
In such a situation, it is natural to ask whether Ravichandran Ashwin would have been a better option in place of Shardul Thakur. Shardul is in the team today because he can bat usefully in the lower order but Ashwin can also bat a little bit. He may have thought that Team India would have been transformed.
Indian fielding did the right thing. Dropped two catches of Ben Stokes in the first innings did not prove to be costly because he could be dismissed early, but the catch of Jonny Bairstow missed by Hanuma Vihari in the second innings, paid heavily. The question arises whether the bouncers of English bowlers were effective and bouncer of Indian bowlers was ineffective, while it is also a fact that the speed of the Indian fast bowlers was faster than the English bowlers but the English fast bowlers are more effective.
India should understand that there are two innings in a match. First innings lead is not everything. At the same time, Jonny Bairstow made his sixth century of this year and second of this match. Virat Kohli seems to have screwed Bairstow up and he gave a befitting reply to Virat by playing a brilliant innings. Virat used to do the same thing once, but then he was at the height of his career. Joe Root showed that his form last year is still intact and he managed to score a fourth century in this series.
At the same time, neither Hanuma Vihari’s technique was seen nor that old sustainable phase of Pujara was seen. Shreyas Iyer and Shardul Thakur proved to be a burden on Team India in a way. The recipe to get Shreyas out on the short ball has been taken out by the foreign teams. If nothing else, Shreyas should watch the videos of Steve Waugh’s early days of his career or look at the innings of Mohinder Amarnath, Mohammad Azharuddin, Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina where once they used to uncomfortable against short balls but later, such balls became their strength. Imran Khan had even called Mohinder the best batsman in terms of facing short balls. If team India does not get rid of these weaknesses, then the series against Bangladesh can also cost India.