Saba Karim praised India for capitalizing on crucial occasions to secure a 4-1 victory in the five-match Test series against England.
On Saturday, March 9, India defeated England in the final Test, held in Dharamsala. The win was by an innings and 64 runs. This happened on the third day of the match. The visitors scored 195 in their second innings. However, India had already taken a substantial lead of 259 runs in the first innings.
While analyzing the series on Colors Cineplex, Saba Karim commended India for producing a fantastic comeback following a setback in the series opener.
“We were repeatedly calling it a moving day but it was moving towards India only. It was a finishing day. This has been a remarkable journey for India in this series, the counterattack they have done. After they lost the first Test, it seemed like it was going to be a very tightly contested series.”
“However, the way India have come back, it started in Vizag, but after that, the biggest thing is that India won this series despite losing tosses. England got many opportunities to make comebacks in the Test matches but India seized the critical moments, and that’s why they won the series 4-1 in the end.”
Saba Karim
In the first Test in Hyderabad, Rohit Sharma’s team initially scored 190 more runs. Unfortunately, they ended up 28 runs short and lost. They rallied and won the next four games. They are now leading in the World Test Championship (WTC) points table.
“All the new players and debutants we saw in this series made splendid contributions” – Saba Karim
Saba Karim highlighted that India won despite the absence of several of its prominent players.
“There were many memorable moments and we got to see many fantastic performances but the biggest thing is that it was achieved without the main players. Virat Kohli isn’t part of this team, KL Rahul was unavailable, but all the new players and debutants we saw in this series made splendid contributions.”
Saba Karim
The cricketer-turned-commentator also claimed that India outperformed England on conditions that aided all aspects of the game.
“On top of that, the experienced players gave match-winning performances, whether it was Jasprit Bumrah, Ravichandran Ashwin or Ravindra Jadeja. The wickets in all Test matches encouraged evenly contested competition and India defeated England in all three aspects – batting, pace bowling and spin bowling.”
Saba Karim
Yashasvi Jaiswal (712) and Shubman Gill (452) were India’s leading run scorers. While Ravichandran Ashwin (26) took the most wickets in the series, Jasprit Bumrah, Kuldeep Yadav, and Ravindra Jadeja each had 19 dismissals for the hosts.