England completed their total and utter domination of India in the Lord’s Test with a win in just 170.3 overs making it the third-shortest Test in the country over the last 100 years
The Report by Sidharth Monga12-Aug-2018England completed their total and utter domination of India in the Lord’s Test with a win in just 170.3 overs making it the third-shortest Test in the country over the last 100 years. On officially the fourth day of the Test, with the threat of weather around, England added 39 to their overnight lead of 250 before bowling India out for 130, their seventh score under 200 in their last eight innings in England. As had been the case throughout the Test, the weather was with the hosts: overcast enough to aid swing but not wet enough to save India.Injury was added to insult, quite literally, with Virat Kohli struggling with a back issue and R Ashwin and Hardik Pandya taking nasty blows on their fingers. Kohli didn’t take the field on the day, and batted with apparent discomfort. Once again, Ashwin was India’s top scorer. Once again there was no respite from the four-pronged England seam attack, with Stuart Broad joining the party with one of his spells from hell: 7-4-7-4 leading to tea, including the wicket of Kohli as the final nail. James Anderson was already there, securing his 100th wicket at Lord’s, 550 in all, and ending up with a nine-for for the match.Given England’s choke hold on Indian batsmen and the weather forecast, it was a surprise they even batted on. Sam Curran added quick runs, but his wicket brought an end to the innings. Immediately, Anderson got down to the business of scything through India’s batting. These were tough batting conditions, but England had a better bowling attack for the conditions, they selected a better XI and they won the crucial toss.M Vijay secured a pair with an inside edge, and KL Rahul fell to one that seamed back in. India’s openers now average below 13 in overseas Tests this year. The openers didn’t last long enough for Kohli to be allowed to bat at his usual station – he had to serve 37 minutes for not taking the field in the morning. Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara struggled for more than 12 overs before Broad got on a roll. After threatening Rahane’s edge regularly with movement against the slope off length balls, he ended an over with a full and wide sucker ball, drawing the edge. Pujara fought on for 87 balls, but he got a lovely inswinger – late movement its feature – to be bowled once again after getting in in tough conditions. Since making his debut, no Indian batsman has been bowled as many times as he has.Kohli struggled with the back, took painkillers, but kept batting out of his crease and lunging forward. Curran tried to counter it by getting the keeper up, while Broad got a short leg in. Broad’s method worked and he followed it with another lethal inswinger to remove Dinesh Karthik. With the second of his wickets, Broad entered the top 10 wicket-takers of all time. He couldn’t eventually add to his seven five-fors in a single spell, though.Those difficult batting conditions were now compounded with uneven bounce. Both Pandya and Ashwin took bows on their fingers. However, they soldiered on, taking every scoring opportunity, taking India past 100 before Chris Woakes returned to get rid of Pandya. Anderson went through Kuldeep Yadav and Mohammed Shami before Woakes made sure India didn’t go past his individual score of 137.
