Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s insistence to play on a rank turner finally back-fired as England inflicted a 10-wicket victory over India at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Monday.
The series is now tied 1-1. England dominated the majority of the match, and India wilted under the all-round attack of visitors.
India never looked like the team that they are while playing at home. They failed collectively as an unit and the made lot of mistakes in the match:
Let us take a look at few mistakes that Team India made in the match:
Playing three spinners: After a good show by their spinners in the last match at Ahmedabad, they got too complacent and a result fielded three spinners, something which is not usual. Harbhajan Singh made a comeback to Test cricket after 14 months gap and never had much influence on the match. Even Dhoni brought him a way late into the match. He did not even get many overs as compared to other two spinners. Overall the move did not work out as they would have liked it to be and was one of the reasons for the loss.
In-effective bowling: The pitch was tailor-made for India but they failed to exploits the conditions well. Whereas English spinners adapted to the situation to the well and ripped apart Indian batting line-up. Indian spinners got the turn but then could not bowl at correct speed which allowed the English batters to read the spinners well.
They never could bring the England batsmen on the front foot and they were playing on the back-foot. Indian spinners failed in the match and even though Pragyan Ojha picked up a five wickets in the first innings but that hardly made any difference in the match.
Batting: Indian batting in both the innings could not live up to the expectations and showed lack of technique and execution in the match. If not for Cheteshwar Pujara and R Ashwin in the first innings, India would have lost more badly. And in the second innings, they were even worse and the whole Indian batting line-up collapsed like nine pins. Indian batters always had problems against quality pace attack, but their performance shows that are turning vulnerable to good spin attack as well.
By Indian Sports News Network