Birmingham: Former cricketers including Virender Sehwag and Ravi Shastri criticised India’s approach in the second innings after Joe Root and Jonny Bairstows brilliant batting display enabled England beat India by seven wickets in the rescheduled Edgbaston Test here on Tuesday.
India fell to 245 all out in the second innings and handed England a record victory target of 378. Apart from Cheteshwar Pujara (66) and first-inning centurion Rishabh Pant (57), none of the batsmen survived against England’s formidable bowling.
Resuming from 259/3, Root (142 not out off 173 balls) and Bairstow (114 not out off 145 balls) achieved the required 119 runs in an hour and a half on Day 5 to tie the series being played for the Pataudi Trophy 2-2 and deny India their first series victory in England since 2007.
Former cricketer Virender Sehwag said India needed to address quite a few issues including the bowling and do some thinking after the loss.
“India have quite a few issues to address, only Pujara & Pant from the top 6 scoring runs and Jadeja batting brilliantly, but need batsman to be in form,” Sehwag tweeted.
“Bowling in the fourth innings was absolutely listless,” the former opening batsman said.
“Special win by England to level the series. Joe Root & Jonny Bairstow have been in sublime form and made batting look very easy,” batting great Sachin Tendulkar wrote on Twitter. “Congratulations to England on a convincing victory.”
Former India fast bowler Irfan Pathan tweeted, “This victory of team England should hurt Team India. That was too easy.”
Ravi Shastri, who was the coach of the Indian Test team before Rahul Dravid took over, slammed Indian batsmen for their defensive approach in the second innings.
“They needed to bat two sessions and I thought they were defensive, they were timid today, especially after lunch,” Shastri said after India finished their second innings on Monday.
“Even after they had lost those wickets, they could have taken some chances. Runs were important at that stage of the game and I thought they just went into a shell, lost those wickets too quickly, and gave enough time for England to bat today.”
(IANS)
