England opener Alex Lees scored a nice half-century and with fellow batter, Zak Crawley laid a good platform for the later batters to dominate in pursuit of a 378-run target set by India on the ongoing fifth Test which is being played at Edgbaston.
Lees alongside Crawley took charge and showed positive intent to thwart the Indian attack which was on song in the first innings. Lees looked well set for a century, batting at a strike rate which was close to 90s, but lost his wicket via a run out.
He inside-edged a Ravindra Jadeja delivery to short fine leg and started running to the other end when he saw Joe Root rushing towards him. The respect paid to his former England captain’s call cost him as he could not reach the non-striker’s end in time, as Jadeja removed the bails after receiving the throw from Mohammad Shami.
Talking about the same in the presser at the end of the day, Lees said: "Yeah, I mean, he (Joe Root) could lend me one of his Test 100's. He has got plenty of them. But no, yeah, I mean, I saw him briefly when he came off the field and, obviously, gutted. I think that, on a personal level, obviously being run-out in two innings now is, obviously, quite hard to take.
But the pleasing thing, for me, is that we are in an amazing position as a team and I have run-out people in my career - it is a horrible feeling. It is nothing that you obviously mean to do. So yeah, I mean, he (Joe Root) is a top guy and, hopefully, he will get the job done tomorrow (lead England to victory on Tuesday).”
Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow, both are batting in their 70s as England requires only 119 runs more to win the fifth Test match and draw the series which India leads 2-1.
Lees was also praiseful of captain Ben Stokes, who picked four wickets in the Indian second innings.
He credited the all-rounder for a match-defining spell, arguing that his scalps, in the end, helped cut short India’s lead by at least 50-70 runs and gave England the advantage on Day 4 as India was bowled out for 245 runs in their second innings.
"The thing that actually brought us back into the game was our bowling. I think (Ben) Stokes' spell this morning (when he took four wickets) really turned the game on its head. And that is probably the defining moment for me within this Test match. We could have easily been chasing 450 - 500 (runs). So I think, the bowlers, how they bowled that second innings and par,” Lees said.
The opener revealed that the entire dressing room was quite confident about chasing the target down and they knew that they needed to put the India camp under pressure by scoring runs.
“And then back to the batting, and how we feel within the dressing room, like you say, I think everybody's pretty confident. We know we have to play positively to put the bowlers under some pressure and the target, really, you know it is there, but it is almost in the background. We are just trying to put the pressure on the bowlers and score some runs, really. Like you say, we know it is there, but it is not something we necessarily spoke about,” the opener said.
Talking about his own innings, Lees said,” on a personal note, obviously my role on a run-chase is to put some pressure on the India bowlers and, obviously, it means I had a solid day (56 runs). I would have, obviously, liked to make more runs of course. But, yeah, I just think we need to really put the bowlers under pressure, particularly when you are chasing a target like that.”
(India Today inputs)
