Team India tailenders have been really great with the bat in the ongoing Test series against England. Former England skipper Nasser Hussain was extremely impressed with their batting and showered praises on the Indian lower-order.
Hussain while writing in his column for Daily Mail, mentioned the vital contributions by the tailenders with the likes of Jasprit Bumrah (24) and Umesh Yadav (25) in their second innings, which helped India post a good target of 368 for the hosts.
“Whenever the India XI has flashed up at the start of a Test this summer, one of the first thoughts has been the length of their tail. But fair play to them. Their lower order have worked on their batting and on Sunday, for the third time in the series, they made an important contribution,” the Englishman wrote.
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“First there was Lord’s on the last morning when Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah put on 89 and took the game away from England. Then, on the first day here, Shardul Thakur helped turn a potential 150 all out into 191, which kept his side in the game,” he further wrote.
The 53-year-old then went on to hail Shardul Thakur for his second half-century of the Oval Test along with critical runs by Bumrah and Umesh and compared this performance with the one which New Zealand showed in the recently concluded final of World Test Championship at Southampton.
“On Sunday, the last four added 150, with Thakur scoring another half-century, and Bumrah and Umesh Yadav again making useful runs. They saw how New Zealand’s lower order outperformed their own during the World Test Championship final in Southampton and decided to do something about it. I take my hat off to them,” the former English cricketer concluded.
As far as the fourth Test match is concerned, hosts England need 291 runs to win the Test match, whereas the tourists are required to take all 10 wickets to win the fourth Test. Thus, it will be exciting to see which team takes a lead in this series after the Oval Test.
(With Daily Mail Inputs)
