India team skipper Virat Kohli applauded the efforts of Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami who stitched together an 89-run unbroken partnership for the ninth wicket to set England a 272-run target in a minimum of 60 overs, which the hosts could not achieve and lost the second Test at Lord’s by 151 runs on Monday.
The pace quartet of Bumrah, Shami, Ishant Sharma and Mohammed Siraj then destroyed the England batting, bowling out the hosts for a paltry 120 with 8.1 overs remaining.
“Just to applaud what Jasprit (Bumrah) and (Mohmmed) Shami did. It takes a lot of character and heart to play under those circumstances as bowlers who don’t get much to bat, and just putting their hand up for the team when we needed it most. It was something that we were really proud of and we want to let them know. They were charged up and both took the new ball and got us two breakthroughs as well, which were very crucial for us,” said Kohli during the post-match press conference.
When the final day started, England had the upper hand and looked good to go 1-0 up in the five-Test series. But tail-enders Shami and Bumrah turned things in India’s favour when they batted, and the rest is history.
“When we were our most successful in Test cricket for a year and a half, our lower order was contributing big time and that’s something that we went away from a little bit when we play away from home. So that was one of our focuses, the batting coach has really worked hard with the boys and they are putting in the hard work. Most importantly when they walk out to bat, they believe that they can stay there and give some runs for the team. I think that belief was missing (before); we were practicing but now they have that desire in them to do the job for the team and we know how priceless those runs are and that proved to be the case even today as well,” Kohli added.
Asked to compare this win with the victory at Lord’s in 2014, Kohli said, “I was part of the winning Test match last time when I was a player under MS (Dhoni). That was pretty special as well, Ishant bowled an outstanding spell. In that game, we put them under pressure on Day 4 itself.
“But this one, to get a result in 60 overs, when we all thought let’s just have a crack at what we have in front of us… It’s quite special and especially when someone like Siraj is playing for the first time at Lord’s and bowling the way he did, (it) was outstanding. As I said, what happened on the field (the verbals) really charged us up and gave us that extra motivation to finish the game off.”
Kohli made it clear that India will go all out in the remaining three Tests as well.
“We have three more games to go, our aim is five Test matches. We are not going to sit on our laurels after this match and just take it easy. If at all, we’re going to get more intense and more precise in what we do in the next outing.”
