This week we discuss another magnificent comeback from Team India to win the #IndvEng test series 3-1. This is the 17th consecutive home series win for India, a record that stretches back to 2012 when India lost against Alastair Cook’s England.
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Edges and Sledges Cricket podcast.
[00:00:13] I'm your host Ashwin, I'm joined by DJ as India have just wrapped up our 17th consecutive
[00:00:22] series win at home to defeating England 3-1 with one test to go, so hopefully 4 many lows, but when it gives you highs like this, it's important to sit back and just appreciate it as well. I'm very happy. Yeah, I could not agree more. That's really well said. I mean, as a recap, and I say this a lot, so if you've been listening every week, I apologize for repeating this, but sitting here saying to play a series against one of the more formidable sides in Test Creek, and yes, it's at home, but no Virat.
[00:01:43] Inconsistent availability of some other players, so Jade into this test, we talked about this last week, if you heard our episode, I was not, neither was Varun pro. Actually, neither were you pro the idea of resting boomerang going into this test. The idea just being, listen, you're up 2-1, get the win when you can, get it to 3-1, and
[00:03:03] then it then rest him in Thermshala. It doesn't really say all's well that ends well, but if this had gone badly, which it didn't look like it was going well for a long time, there would have been questions raised as to why Bhumra was rested because at 112 for 5 with a Bhumra in your ranks,
[00:04:22] you would have expected India to bowl England out for 250-ish. That they went out to get And to lose Bhumra to a voluntary decision did not sit right with me. I just felt that his workload, yes, it should be managed, but manage it by not playing him in a bilateral T20 series, manage it by asking him to... I guess and then we'll get into it. But at 112 for 5 before lunch, you're thinking India is well in the driver's seat. England batted first, sorry, 112 for 5 before lunch. Great, awesome spot to be. When they make 353, you're thinking, okay, fairly even England slightly
[00:07:03] ahead, but you don't actually ever know what a pitch that delivered a good test match, or was it a little bit difficult for batters based on how much the ball was doing on day one, or how low it was keeping? That's a good question. I mean, Stokes got two balls at Kepler. There were a few that shot through.
[00:08:20] Yasas with Yaswal got one which shot through
[00:08:23] in the first innings to bowl him.
[00:08:26] There was one, there was a few that popped off So it was people that were able to adapt their game that got runs on this track and it was good to see proper old-fashioned test cricket come back. Both first innings lasted over a hundred overs, right? And people who were prepared to do the work got the outcomes. So I think it was not a bad pitch for test cricket.
[00:09:41] The games lasted three and a half, four him lots of accolades and full credit. As much as I want to have the discussion about did he do as well as he did,
[00:11:02] because he went against the spirit of basketball, but that's a whole different discussion.
[00:12:04] hit a test cricket, but they've got the siren going for it no more. But anyway, how great is it to look at the England top three, Crowley duckered, both of who had good series objectively,
[00:12:10] crossed 45 again for the sixth, I think, out of eight times in this series, and then Akash gets
[00:12:17] duckered out, Ollie pop out, and the same over, and then Crowley not shortly after, also bold,
[00:12:23] which I felt was deserved. What a start to your test career, right? That's a nice sign. Bold with good pace, 138 clicks or so. He said that Shami's been giving him some advice on that because they both play together for Bengal. He's got a bit about him. He seems, looks like he's a really useful cricketer in the game. He's fought all odds to get here.
[00:13:42] Good on him.
[00:13:43] I think a good addition to the Indian pace pattern us called him England's greatest ever test cricket batsman and he put on an absolutely magnificent century, very restrained and yet aggressive eight decisions, I think, in this match when. No, it was 10 out of 11 till yesterday. 10 out of 11. I don't know what you're on today. 10 out of 11 DRS decisions, either overturning an out decision or surviving, but have gone England's way.
[00:16:22] And now there's no cop.
[00:16:24] And actually, by the way, Michael Vaughan
[00:16:25] came out and spoke up against Joe Root's dismissal basically because there's an element of... I mean, empires are humans. Yeah, they're human, right? And they would have heard what Ben Stokes has said. And maybe that does play a little bit in their minds when they're giving these decisions. Because if you look at the Indian first innings dismissals, those are the ones that stick in my mind. Gill, umpires call on online. Pattidar umpires call on clipping. Ash gets u you stay in the media. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I don't think the game's going to change. The Naser & Senn clip is pretty clear. If you say if it's going to hit, you basically expand the area of the stumps by quite a lot. So you need to not do that if you're a bat. Yeah. And I hope technology gets better over time. But I think it's just one of those
[00:19:02] infuriating things that starts to take away from the and 17 runs a start, but nobody else got out super early until Ash. But yeah, double-digit scores for mostly everybody else. Gil looked good, grounded out like I mentioned. And then it took till, what was it, 161 for five, when Jesswall gets out at 73. 171 for six, Sarfraz gets out right after that.
[00:20:20] And 177 for seven.
[00:20:22] So now you're sitting there saying 353,
[00:20:26]