India defeated England by five wickets in the fourth Test match on February 26th. With this victory, India took an unbeatable 3-1 lead in the five Test series. The match occurred at the JSCA Stadium in Ranchi.
This is the first series loss for captain Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum, who were previously successful with their ‘Bazball’ strategy to red-ball cricket.
Fans of X (previously Twitter) mocked ENG for their first series loss in the Bazball era. A user wrote:
“Bazball clownery ended in India.”
Here are a few more reactions:
Chasing 192 in the fourth innings of the fourth Test, India completed the chase in 61 overs. Shubman Gill and Dhruv Jurel led the hosts to a five-wicket victory with unbroken scores of 52 (124) and 39 (77), respectively.
The two established a match-winning 72-run partnership after the visitors got three fast wickets, leaving India at 120/5. India skipper Rohit Sharma (55 off 81) and Yashasvi Jaiswal (37 off 44) earlier had an 84-run opening wicket partnership.
India overcome 46-run deficit to beat England in Ranchi Test
India trailed ENG by 46 runs in the first inning. ENG second innings collapsed thanks to an inspired spell from veteran Ravichandran Ashwin and brilliant bowling from Kuldeep Yadav.
Ashwin’s fifer and Yadav’s four-wicket haul saw the visitors bowled out for 145, setting India a 192-run goal. Zak Crawley (60 off 91) was ENG leading scorer in the third innings.
Batting first, the visitors scored 353 in the first innings, led to a century from Joe Root. The former captain scored 122 out of 274, including ten boundaries. Ravindra Jadeja shined with the ball for the hosts, finishing with 4/67, while Akash Deep and Mohammed Siraj took three and two wickets, respectively.
In response, India were bundled out for 307 in their first innings. Dhruv Jurel and Yashasvi Jaiswal starred with the bat, scoring 90 (149) and 73 (117), respectively. While Shoaib Bashir picked up his maiden five-wicket haul for the visitors, Tom Hartley and James Anderson shared three and two wickets, respectively, during India’s first innings with the bat.