England’s captain Joe Root admitted that Jasprit Bumrah’s spell was the turning point of the Oval Test.
Bumrah’s bowled a ferocious spell after the Lunch session on the final day as he breathed down the neck of the England batsmen with reverse swing. India went on to win the fourth Test by 157 runs as they dominated the hosts.
England was comfortably placed at 120-2 at the Lunch break but Bumrah was able to turn the tables. The Indian fast bowler made great use of the old ball and got it to reverse consistently. Bumrah first breached Ollie Pope’s defense with a perfect nip-backer and then castled Jonny Bairstow’s stumps with a brilliant yorker.
In fact, Bumrah could have also had Joe Root’s wicket as he bowled two perfect yorkers but the England captain was able to keep it out. Bumrah spell read as 6-3-6-2 as bowled some breathtaking balls and the cricket experts hailed the Indian fast bowler.
Joe Root said in the post-match presentation, “It’s frustrating, thought we’ll get something from the game today, we had an opportunity of winning a Test match. The opening partnership was outstanding, credit to India, they got the ball to reverse.
I thought Bumrah’s spell was the real turning point of the game. From our side, we’ll have to look at other areas where we missed opportunities, maybe we should have made more of an advantage with the first-innings lead and should have taken the chances that were offered. We always look to get better, he’s (on Bumrah) a superb bowler and at times we need to be realistic and accept that he bowled really well, that was world-class bowling”.
Root added that it is crucial for the team to manage through a difficult spell but they weren’t able to do it. The England captain also feels that the batsmen in the first innings should have converted their starts into a big score and it could have been a different story had they taken a lead of more than 150 runs in the first innings.
Root added, “Have to manage better if we’re in a similar situation in the near future, especially our game against reverse swing. Whenever we lose a game, we can always look back at the toss, we can always think about a few things and the way it happened, but at the end of the day, we need to be ruthless, should have got more than a 100-run lead. We needed that big hundred, big partnerships – we need to play good cricket right around in Old Trafford, can’t get complacent and get those big runs which set up the game, which we did a week ago (in Headingley). You can pick out individuals, but need to work collectively as a batting group. Having got starts, you have to make those 20-30 runs count”.
England would be disappointed as they had taken a 99-run lead in the first innings but could not capitalize on the same. India went on to score 466 runs in the second innings and set a target of 368 runs for the hosts and thus dominated the contest.
