The Indian cricket team picked up their first victory against the English army at the Oval for the first time in 50 years. The men in blue under the captaincy of Virat Kohli, won for the second time in this series, at the 4th test, getting a lead of 2-1 against England. Winning the match is certainly good, but ending this long streak without a victory in the iconic ground of The Oval is certainly a proud moment.
The last time, they won on this ground, was back in 1971, when BS Chandrasekhar took six wickets and also dismissed John Price in England’s second innings. The team was then led by Ajit Wadekar, where the Indian’s achieved by 4 wickets. Also, the series was indeed historic in the world of cricket, as for the first time, India won a Test series in England.
The match
Though India didn’t seem comfortable in their first innings, as they were collapsing without making many runs. Shardul Thakur coming at the lower middle order countered the English bowling attack, and took India to a quite good total of 191, in their first innings. The Indian bowlers on contrary also did well against the English batsmen. However, Ollie Pope’s 81 and Chris Woakes 60 ball 50 runs helped them to take a lead of 99 runs.
In the second innings of India, they fought brilliantly, putting up a massive score of 466 on the board. Rohit Sharma’s century did the maximum work, alongside Pujara’s 61. And also, Rishabh Pant and Shardul Thakur’s partnership at the end helped them to reach this total at the end. Both of them scored 50 and a quick 60 respectively. The tailenders of India, have also developed in batting skills with Umesh Yadav scoring 25 of 23 with two sixes and a four, and Bumrah scoring 24 of 38 with four fours.
And then on the final innings of the match, the two English openers including Rory Burns and Haseeb Hameed gave a good start, with both scoring 50 and 63 respectively. But then no one was able to reach the 40 score mark. The Indian bowlers did a brilliant job, with Yadav picking up 3 wickets, and Bumrah, Jadeja, and Thakur picking up 2 each. Overall it was a team effort by the Indian cricket team to end their 50-year winning drought at The Oval.
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