ENG v IND 2018: 5 major reasons why India came out on top against England in the 3rd Test

India won the third Test match by 203 runs against England.

India finally has a win on the tour of England in the ongoing Test series. India came into the third Test at Trent Bridge 2-0 down after losing the Tests at Birmingham and Lord’s.

However, it was a clinical performance by the Indian team, which kept England under pressure throughout the match. The morale of Indian team should have been low after the drubbing at Lord’s but the team came out fighting from the word go and England faced a new threat in form of Jasprit Bumrah, someone who was absent from the limited overs series and the first two Tests.

Having Bumrah back in the team was a big plus for Team India and the fact that openers also put up good scores on board in both innings. Bowling wise it was a complete performance by the Indian bowlers and even an injured Ashwin gave it his all.

Keeping this in mind, Team COC highlights the five most important reasons why Team India triumphantly won the match against England.

Check out the 5 major reasons why India came out on top against England in the 3^rd Test

Ajinkya Rahane-Virat Kohli partnership in first innings

India was put into bat by Joe Root in what would remain a debatable decision for few days to come. The Indian openers Shikhar Dhawan and KL Rahul forged a spirited partnership of 60 runs and gave India a very good start to be built upon.

This work of building upon that start was done by Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane who forged a brilliant 159-run partnership for the fourth wicket. Their partnership took India towards their primary goal of scoring 300 runs in the first innings.

Ajinkya Rahane scored 81 in 131 runs and Virat Kohli scored 97 in 152 balls, narrowly missing a hundred. But the captain and the vice-captain of the team made sure that the Indian bowlers had a substantial total to back them.

Hardik Pandya’s all-around performance

India knew that they would be in control of the Test if they could gain a lead of 100 or so runs. This work was done by Hardik Pandya who picked important wickets of Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Chris Woakes, Adil Rashid and Stuart Broad to pick his career best bowling figures of 5/28 in just 6 overs.

He took those 5 wickets in a spell of 29 balls and triggered a collapse for England, from which they couldn’t recover, being bowled out for 161 and giving India a lead of 168 runs. Pandya bowled the lengths necessary to get wickets and even employed the short ball pretty well.

Then he performed with the bat as well. India was already in a good position after Pujara’s 72 and Virat Kohli’s 103, but India needed a substantial lead in quick time to have that cushion of a large lead in the fourth innings.

That’s when they turned to Hardik Pandya and he came up with a run-a-ball 52 with 7 fours and 1 six. His innings took the Indian lead over 500 runs and proved crucial in the long run.

Team playing as a unit and catching in slips

After the heavy defeat at England’s hands in Lord’s, the Indian team needed to get back as a unit and they did it in style. The batting unit that was looking a one-man show, came good in both innings as the openers shared valuable stands in both innings and Cheteshwar Pujara applied himself to carve out a patient 72.

Rahane came good in the first innings to stitch up a valuable partnership with Virat Kohli. Kohli, as usual, was on a different level altogether and scored 97 and 103 runs in the two innings of the Test match.

Bowling wise, it was too a very good effort by the senior bowlers in Mohammad Shami and Ishant Sharma to support the in-form Pandya in the first innings and Bumrah in second innings.

However, the biggest change came in the slips catching and in the keeping. Though Pant put down a hard one, his 7 catches in the match was a record in itself and he is definitely a talent to be groomed for the long term.

KL Rahul too picked 7 catches in the match and the overall catching was good in the slips by India. This gave a big boost for the bowlers, who knew that hard catches will also be taken easily and their efforts will be rewarded.

Virat Kohli’s aggressive captaincy

Virat Kohli has been aggressive in his captaincy in every Test, but with his bowlers doing well in this Test, his captaincy was seen as more aggressive. He always had slip fielders in place and even gave Ashwin the cushion of leg slip, short leg and even silly point.

The aggressiveness in his captaincy also came forth when Stuart Broad verbally attacked Rishabh Pant after dismissing him. Broad was paid back in kind by the Indian fielders and Kohli was at the front taking jibes at Broad for his ill-advised verbal diarrhea.

Virat Kohli’s field placing was on point and his bowlers bowled to a plan and the result was a 203 runs win over England.

Jasprit Bumrah’s five-wicket haul  

India had a massive lead of 521 runs behind them when they came out to bowl in the fourth innings. However, the bowlers came out firing on all cylinders and were always looking for wickets. The fall of wickets began with Ishant Sharma sending back both the openers Jennings and Cook and then Bumrah took over with the wicket of Root.

After the massive partnership between Buttler and Stokes; Virat Kohli was looking for someone to break the partnership and took the second new ball as it became available and gave it to Bumrah. Bumrah gave an immediate result in the wickets of Buttler and Bairstow. He then removed the Lord’s centurion Woakes with a beauty of a short ball and after an annoying partnership between Broad and Rashid, removed Broad to complete his first five-wicket haul in England and his second in Tests.