England were rattled and shaken on the final day of the Lord’s Test against a hostile Indian team led by Virat Kohli and four pacers. From the first session, England lost their way and India were rescued from a precarious situation by Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah, with whom the hosts attempted to settle ego battles.
Later, they could not manage to hold the Indian bowling attack off for a little more than 50 overs and conceded a 1-0 lead from a position of relative strength. Skipper Joe Root was gutted to see his team falling off the clip after reaching a point from where they should have had the game in their pocket.
They had to dig deep as Kohli had promised to get bogged down irrespective of the situations and needed to start the third Test on a perfect note. On cue, the bowling attack led by James Anderson ran riots on the Indian batting lineup and routed them for 78 inside the first two sessions.
Later on the same day, England also thwarted the same quartet of pacers and ended the day at 120/0 that more or less put India on the brink right on the first day. India were always playing a catchup game and in the end, fell short by an innings and 76 runs.
Having won the third Test at his home ground Headingley, Root hailed the performances on the first day of the third Test as a “perfect storm” that allowed them to blow India away. He commended bowlers for exploiting the excellent conditions for bowling but called the hundred run partnership a near “turning point” for their series-levelling win.
He said that the openers Haseeb Hameed and Rory Burns fulfilled a long-standing demand of big first innings score and laid down a perfect platform for the middle order to take the game away from India’s grasp.
"It was almost the perfect storm, everything seemed to fall our way. Perfect little nicks to the keeper got us off to a great start, it was a brilliant bowling performance. We found our lengths, exploited the wicket really well. And that opening partnership to set things up was almost a turning point in the game for me,” Root said in the post-match press conference.
“A substantial first-wicket partnership was exceptional and credit to those two lads. Under the pump off the back of last week, to come out and perform like that and get us 135-0 was brilliant. Really set the game up and gave the rest of us the opportunity to go and make that big first innings score that me and Silvers harp on to you guys about all the time."
While James Anderson was his tormentor-in-chief in the first innings as he eliminated the first three big wickets of India such as the man in form KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli, it was Ollie Robinson, who kept the hosts in the game bowling in the channel around off stump throughout the third day.
India were brilliant with the bat but could not get away as Robinson was on the money albeit Anderson was offline for the most part of the day. The pacer earned rewards for his accuracy and consistency on the fourth morning as he wiped out the Indian middle order to hand India a humiliating defeat.
Root spoke very highly of the tall seamers and said that he does not remember a lot of names who got settled so quickly at the international level the way he has so far now.
He has played four Tests so far and already has two five-wicket hauls to name. Root said that the England team management was never unsure of his credentials with the ball and it was just a matter of whether he would be able to extract as much off the pitch with the older ball as he gets with the newer one.
"Not off the top of my head. It's been phenomenal to watch him perform as he has. The Test matches he's played, he's had big influences on all of them. He's been around the squad for a little while and we've known how skilful he is. It was almost a question of whether he'd be able to back it up in his third spell with the ball a little older. And he's shown huge skill in being able to do that time and time again with big workloads under his belt. He's shown what he is capable of doing and long may that continue,” Root spoke of Robinson, who was adjudged Man of the Match at Headingley.
Root has been in red-hot form in the series with three centuries from as many games and with the win in Leeds, he has gone on to become the most successful England captain in terms of wins.
He was ecstatic to beat Michael Vaughan as the captain of England with the most number of wins and said that all these successes are the stuff of his “boyhood dreams”. He also extended gratitude to all the players who have put their hands up with performances and coaching staffs for finding perfect ways of preparation behind the scenes to enable him in the journey to the top.
"I'm living my boyhood dream, captaining England. Something I dreamed of doing from being really small. Great group of players, who are very talented and dedicated to becoming better all the time. Couldn't be more proud, proud to have gone past Michael. But you don't do that on your own as a captain, it's down to the group of players and the coaching staff as well. It's all one big thing. You're the one making the decisions but they are the ones going out and time and time again putting in performances. And really proud of the way they have done that this week,” a proud England skipper added.
Although it was the bowling that won England the third Test, Root would be more delighted that other batsmen stepped up with valuable contributions to bat India out of the game. The opening pair of Burns and Hameed, and followed by the returning Dawid Malan at number three provided England a bullish start to boss the flows of the game while India kept on chasing the curve with indifferent bowling performances.