England defeated India in the second Test at Lord's by an innings and 159 runs.
However, despite rain washing away the first day of the match, the Indian team crumbled against some quality swing and seam pace bowling at the hands of England fast bowlers. Not only just batting, England outplayed them with the bat as well. Indian bowlers were a shadow of their selves in the first Test at Edgbaston.
Though the overcast conditions aided the swing and seam bowling of England bowlers, it was more the failure of Indian batting to cope up with the top class bowling. They were bowled out for 107 in the first innings in 35.2 overs and in the second innings were bundled out for 130 runs in 47 overs. In the Test, Indian team batted for just 82.2 overs.
Indian bowlers gave the team a chance by picking four wickets relatively early, but England keeper and a bowling all-rounder made them toil hard, after surviving the initial burst and made the bowlers pay.
Taking all the things into considerations, Team COC looks at the five things that went horribly wrong for Team India at Lord’s.
Here are the 5 Reasons why Team India lost the second Test against England at Lord’s
Dinesh Karthik’s failures with the bat
India finally found someone of the caliber of Gilchrist, who could change the course of games with his batting and was extremely safe behind the stumps in Dhoni. In his 90 Tests career, Dhoni made everyone forget the trials that Indian cricket went through before him.
Since his retirement, Team India settled for Wriddhiman Saha who is considered at par with MS Dhoni when it comes to his keeping skills and is trusted with the bat in his hand. However, with his injury during IPL, India had to look for other alternatives and found them in Parthiv Patel and Dinesh Karthik.
Dinesh Karthik piped Parthiv Patel for the role of wicketkeeper for the tour of England, thanks to his batting abilities, which he showcased in the T20 format in IPL and the Nidahas trophy.
Dinesh Karthik had the experience of touring England before in 2007, and that too as an opener and was successful. He was expected to repeat the same. However, Karthik was found wanting with both bat and behind the stumps in both Tests.
He was bowled by a beauty of the delivery by Sam Curran in the first innings for 1 run and then Stuart Broad got him LBW on the first ball in the second innings. He took a very good one-handed catch of Jonny Bairstow off Pandya in England’s only innings.
However, his was needed to anchor one end with the bat and but has resulted in him failing to cope up with the swing and seam of England fast bowlers and it seems like India will be looking for his options in the upcoming Test at Trent Bridge.
Ajinkya Rahane’s loss of form
However, he was found woefully out of form in both the Tests and in the Lord’s Test, he not only got out for 18 and 13, despite looking a bit set; but he got out for terrible shots. In both the innings, Rahane was out edging to slips, while fishing for the ball outside the off stump.
He being out of form puts the spanner in the scheme of things for the Indian team, as the only other option for him is Karun Nair. Seeing the way things have gone for him, Rahane requires a really good inning under his belt to keep his place intact for the rest of the series.
Openers couldn’t stand up to Anderson and Broad
M Vijay’s technique deserted him as he was found playing an out-swinging delivery from Anderson on the leg side in the first innings and then edged one to the keeper in the second innings. He didn’t play straight and didn’t leave the ball and was generally guessing where the ball would swing.
Key bowlers missing
Jasprit Bumrah had a terrific start to his Test career against South Africa, where he picked up his maiden five-wicket haul. However, he broke his thumb in the first T20I of the UK tour against Ireland and has been missing in the action since then. Given his awkward action, his pace and his ability to move the ball off the pitch could have troubled the England batsmen a lot.
The second bowler missing was Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who was the pick of Indian bowlers on the last tour of 2014. His ability to swing the ball both in the air and off the pitch would have had the same effect as Anderson and Broad in the same conditions and pitch. But his back injury, which he suffered in the IPL 2018, was aggravated when he was played in the third and final ODI of the England series.
Missing both Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar meant that India had no option to backup Umesh Yadav, Ishant Sharma, and Mohammad Shami. Hardik Pandya proved to be ineffective as the backup seamer and team management’s decision to leave out Umesh came back to haunt them.
Wrong team selection
However, if Umesh Yadav was picked, India would have had a better third fast bowler on that pitch, which had something for the pace bowlers and Umesh has that extra speed to make the difference, which Hardik Pandya doesn’t have.
In retrospective, even the decision to drop Shikhar Dhawan can also be seen as a wrong decision, because he was given the axe, despite M Vijay also failing in the first innings of both Tests. But M Vijay managed to keep his place on his reputation, which is now in tatters. Left-hander Shikhar Dhawan would have bought some variety in the all right-handed batting lineup for India.
Team India now have to get lots of things right to make a comeback in this series in the third Test at Trent Bridge starting on August 18