
In a befitting climax to their incredible winning run of fourth-innings chases against New Zealand, clean sweeping the Series 3-0, England have successfully chased down a never-before total of 378 runs set by India to win the 5th Test match against India in Birmingham today by 7 wickets. As in the previous chase in the third Test against New Zealand that England won by 7 wickets it’s none other than that rollicking duo of Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow who has crafted a magical unbeaten partnership of 269 runs, in just about 54 overs, once again here to overcome the highest ever total in the fourth innings against any side in their Test cricket history. For that matter, India too had never before failed to defend a 350+ run target in a Test match. Root and Bairstow had been crucial in all of the test victories against New Zealand along with Ben Stokes, Overton and Ollie Pope giving company at times. Joe Root has notched up his third century in the four successful chases including this one, apart from other 50+ scores, and is declared the Player of the Series vs. India for having scored the highest individual runs (700+) in this five-match Series, beating the earlier record held by Virat Kohli. And of course, the hosts have the last laugh as far as the decision to field first is concerned, thanks to the positivity of Captain Stokes and new coach Brendon McCullum.

Jonny Bairstow has picked up his fourth ton in as many matches including two successive centuries in this match—his 106 glorious runs in the first innings that restricted India’s possible lead considerably and the match-winning 114 not out today. In both of his innings Bairstow has kept the scoreboard moving with a very healthy strike rate throughout, in a perfect display of controlled aggression. In hindsight, his dropped catch by Hanuma Vihari when he was only on 14 could emerge as the costliest lapse of the match on India’s part. Otherwise, the duo batted freely all along since last evening when they made the victory target look almost a formality for the fifth and the last day today, accomplishing the 378-run mammoth target in only the 77th over and not allowing India to entertain any chance of having a date with the new ball.
For England the openers Lees and Crawley also contributed in the innings that mattered most, building up a 100+ partnership in quick time last afternoon with Lees being the aggressor and Crawley the patient anchor on the other side. There had been a somewhat flurry of wickets as England slid from 107 for no loss to 109/3; however, the Indian bowlers could not take advantage of the situation and the Root-Bairstow duo made the proceedings extremely one-sided, excruciatingly for the devout Indian fans out there on the stands of Birmingham and before television sets across India.
There’d hardly be any ifs and buts for India in this incredible display of batting prowess by the Englishmen. Had the Indian top order contributed many more runs, say 200 more, the English batsmen would’ve overhauled that too the way they went about batting, making a new record in World Test Cricket history perhaps. But the fact remains that except for Pujara in the second innings the Indian top order failed again. In a team without the services of their regular opener duo—KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma—the former Indian captain Virat Kohli was expected to fire at least in one of the innings; but the greatest cricketer of the modern times seems have forgotten the art of hitting tons or half-tons or even good useful knocks, entirely.
The other worrying factor is that the spirited Indian bowlers of the first innings failed to defend a huge total of 378 for the first time in its Test Cricket history; their bowling in the second innings looked pedestrian with not a single bowler making any mark on the English batsmen. The bowlers extracted more swing in England’s first innings, but failed entirely to do so in the second. In India’s second innings too England bowlers utilized the pitch very well where the ball seemed to be keeping low at times, and their solitary spinner Leach too bowled effectively to capture a wicket; whereas the Indian counterpart Ravindra Jadeja failed to make any impression. Captain Stokes captured all the last four Indian wickets in a terrific spell of intelligent bowling. Maybe the increasingly sunny weather completely dried up the moisture in the pitch and finally made it a haven for batting on the 4th and 5th day for the hosts. But, as we said, nothing really matters whey you’re treated with that kind of superlative batting.
Now, it’s over to the games in the shorter formats, the three-match ODI Series and the three-match T20I Series between the two teams with the first T20I scheduled on 7th July 2022 and the ODI Series to start from July 12.
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