Ravindra Jadeja was on his knees, literally pleading the umpire with an animated appeal as Mark Wood missed the slog sweep and the ball crashed into the pads. The umpire raised his finger, Jadeja kissed his home turf after completing a five-wicket haul and India started celebrating a thumping win.
Wood, however, wasn’t convinced with the decision and went for a review. Replays showed the ball pitched outside leg and India had to wait a tad longer for the final wicket of the Test.
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The moment finally arrived in Jadeja’s next over as Wood’s big hit found Yashasvi Jaiswal, India’s unbeaten double centurion, in the deep. The arms went up in the air as the local boy completed a fifer in front his home crowd and helped India register a 434-run win, their biggest Test win by runs and in just four days.
It took India little over three hours to bundle the opposition out in just 39.4 overs and had Wood (15-ball 33) not swung his bat towards the end, the defeat could have been much worse for the visitors. Apart from Wood, only four other England batters entered the double digits as the visitors looked a very clueless bunch during the approach in this innings.
Under captain Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum, they have had tough days in the past but never have they looked so short of ideas. For the last two days, they have looked a stubborn side and didn’t even try to make the adjustments which were required against a quality opposition.
They were never going to chase this total down on a deteriorating Rajkot strip but when the boundaries didn’t flow like they did during their first innings, they just didn’t know what to do.
India stuck to their strengths and, led by Ravindra Jadeja, figured the ideal length for this surface very quickly in their innings. Full remained the keywords as both Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav kept hitting the ideal spot and were rewarded with five and two wickets respectively.
There was one each for Jasprit Bumrah and R Ashwin too as another complete bowling performance served a perfect antidote to Bazball as the run-rate remained around two for most of the chase and was only pushed to three after Wood swung his bat towards the end.
Starting from the batting collapse on Day 3 to a long period of chasing leather on the field and then the implosion with the bat today, England had no plans. The moment Rohit Sharma and Co. came better prepared with the ball on Day 3, the visitors were pushed into a shell they could never come out from. Horrible shot selection, compulsive display of intent and lack of situation awareness not only gave India 126-run first innings lead but mental edge over an opposition which looked in panic mode.
“Even when this England team have lost in the last 2 years you have always been able to take positives .. or they haven’t been hammered .. this is looking like a wake up call that surely sends a message you can’t just play one way against quality teams .. #INDvENG”
Michael Vaughan’s tweet in the middle of another England collapse in this Test aptly summed up the day and Test for Ben Stokes and Co. Only twice has Stokes lost two back-to-back Tests during his time as England captain and would need to inject confidence and self-belief into the group before the Ranchi Test gets underway on February 23 as it will now take a special effort to stop this Indian bunch.
Brief Scores: India 445 (Rohit Sharma 131, Ravindra Jadeja 112, Sarfaraz Khan 62; Mark Wood 4/114) and 430/4 (Yashasvi Jaiswal 214*, Shubman Gill 91, Sarfaraz Khan 68*; Tom Hartley 1/78) beat England 319 (Ben Duckett 153; Mohammed Siraj 4/84) and 122 (Mark Wood 33; Ravindra Jadeja 5/41) by 434 runs
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