Defending the stiff target of 319, India was favourites to win the 2014 Lord's Test against England going into the fifth day. However, the famous win seemed under threat when Joe Root and Moeen Ali almost took the home team safely through to lunch.
Just then, pacer Ishant Sharma remembers, the then skipper MS Dhoni told him to run-in and attack the two batsmen with a few short balls and see what happens.
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As it turned out, Ishant got Ali out fending off to short-leg to break the sixth-wicket stand, as India went for the lunch thinking a lot more positive than it thought it would be.
Ishant, feeling inspired by Dhoni's aggressive mindset, continued with his ploy, as England collapsed in the second session to hand India a rare Test victory abroad, with the pacer himself bagging figures of 7/74.
"At the end of the fourth day I had already dismissed Cook and Bell, Mahi bhai told us that from here no one will think of a draw," Ishant said on Gaurav Kapur’s Youtube show Isolation Premier League. "Obviously, there was pressure on us on the last day. Moeen Ali and Root were playing bell so Mahi bhai asked me to start bowling short as nothing was happening. He told me to bowl short till we take the new ball. Just before lunch Moeen Ali was dismissed."
"While we were going in for lunch Mahi bhai told me that he will make me bowl in short spells and that I had to bowl short. I told him that now he should just let me bowl till the end of the match."
"After I bowled four overs on the trot, Mahi bhai asked me to take rest but I told him that there fuel in the car let it run."
That remains only India's second Test win at Lord's in the history of the game.
For Ishant, personally, even though he missed the next game in Southampton due to injury, it was that spell which led to a turnaround in his career.
The 31-year-old has been constantly improving since that day at the 'Home of Cricket'. He is now very close to joining the 300-wickets club for India, with 297 scalps at an average of 32.39.
(Inputs from HT)
