England beat India by 227 runs, India lose first home test in 4yrs

England beat India by 227 runs, India lose first home test in 4 years. This was also the 4th successive loss in test cricket for India under Virat Kohli’s captaincy. England won a very important toss and made full use of the conditions to bat for 2 entire days. Such a huge first innings total was always going to be tough to combat. Joe Root was the chief architect for this England win.

Brief Scores

1st innings Engand 578-10(190.1 overs). J Root 218(377), D Sibley 87(286), J Bumrah 3/84, R Ashwin 3/146.
India 337-10(95.5 overs). R Pant 91(88), W Sundar 85*(138), D Bess 4/76, J Anderson 2/46.

2nd innings England 178-10(46.3 overs). J Root 40(32), O Pope 28(32), R Ashwin 6/61, S Nadeem 2/66.
India 192-10 (58.1 overs). V Kohli 72(104), S Gill 50(83), J Leach 4/76, J Anderson 3/17.

Man of the Match- Joe Root

On Day 1 when England captain Joe Root won the toss, he elected to bat first. This was an obvious choice considering it was a typical subcontinent batting pitch for atleast the first 2 days. But the pitch was absolutely difficult to bowl on for the bowlers in the first couple of days.

Joe Root scores another double hundred, his second in 2021

England batted for a really long time in the first innings, tiring the Indian bowlers while doing so. They were led from the front by their captain Joe Root. He scored a magnificent double century. He was ably supported by Dom Sibley on the first day and Ben Stokes in the second day. A few handy contributions from the lower order took England to a mammoth first innings score of 578 runs.

When India came to bat, it was expected that they would also put up a huge score in reply. But 4 of their batsmen were dismissed when the score was just 73. It looked like India would follow on their innings. But Rishabh Pant played a superb counter-attacking innings of 91. The way he took on Jack Leach in particular was a treat to watch.

He was ably supported by Cheteshwar Pujara, who was very unlucky in his dismissal. Even Washington Sundar played an important innings. He ran short of partners as he remained not out on 85. India were folded for 337 runs, but England did not enforce the follow on.

Ashwin took 6 wickets in the second innings, Ishant picked up his 300th Test wicket

England wanted to score quick runs in the second innings. But this also paved way for the bowlers to take wickets. Ravichandran Ashwin struck with the first ball of the innings. He took 6 wickets and showed why he is so difficult to play on Indian turning pitches. Ishant Sharma took his 300th Test wicket in the form of Daniel Lawrence. India were thus set a huge target of 420 runs with more than a day’s play left.

India lost Rohit Sharma on Day 4 itself. Thus on the final day they had just 9 wickets in hand, with 381 runs to chase. Shubman Gill scored another half-century. Captain Virat Kohli also hit some runs. But the day 5 pitch turned out to be unplayable for the hosts. Jack Leach and James Anderson took 4 and 3 wickets respectively as India lost by 227 runs.

The man of the match was Joe Root for his superb double century in the first innings. He also scored a quickfire 40 runs in the second innings. Thus he scored 258 runs in the match.England beat India by 227 runs.

Read Also : Pakistan beat South Africa by 95 runs, clean sweep series 2-0