A tale of a superhuman act was chronicled at Lord’s tonight as India clinched a humdinger victory over the English and it came after a staggering 7 years.
This stadium has always been very special to the Indians. After Saurav Ganguly flailed his jersey in response to Flintoff’s act in 2002, India penned a new chapter of resistance tonight that saw them waging a full-blown war to dismantle the hosts.
After losing Pant early on the day, India seemed to totter around the fringes of another overseas defeat. However, Shami and Bumrah had other plans and their record-shattering ninth-wicket partnership completely changed the complexion of the game.
What seemed like a bare minimum lead for India to defend initially shortly changed into a mammoth 258 to win for England. To aggravate matters, the partnership of Shami and Bumrah struck gold again as they returned the opening pair of Sibley and Burns for naught.
India ripped through the top half of the English innings with some impeccable bowling and Ishant Sharma stood out until then.
Things started oscillating slowly in favour of England when Moeen Ali and Jos Buttler squeezed their hearts out in the middle. Kohli introduced Siraj to bang the infringement and the speedster got two in a row.
England continued to wobble but in the end it was Siraj who mopped up the tail to chronicle a historical victory at Lord’s. Buttler fought until the very end, garnering 25 runs from 96 balls but fell to the Indian speedster as Rishabh Pant completed a safe take.
Renowned author and political analyst, Manobala Vijayabalan tweeted an excellent piece of trivia stating the Test wins that India managed under the three captains at Lord’s.
Only 3 captains from India have won a test match at Lord’s.#KapilDev – 1986#MSDhoni – 2014#ViratKohli – 2021#INDvsENG #ENGvsIND
— Manobala Vijayabalan (@ManobalaV) August 16, 2021
The first one came under Kapil Dev where Dilip Vengsarkar and Chetan Sharma’s heroics ruled the roost in the first innings with the captain himself springing to life in the second.
The second Test victory for India at Lord’s came under MS Dhoni in a match that will always be memorable for Ishant’s 7-wicket spell.
The final victory came tonight that witnessed a remarkable turnaround to forge a story of cricketing grit and character under the captaincy of Virat Kohli.
