Former England spinner Monty Panesar believes India should have won Lord’s Test of the recently concluded five-match Test series. India was able to draw the maiden Anderson-Tendulkar series after winning the fifth Test match at Kennington Oval by six runs.

Meanwhile, India lost the Lord’s Test match by 22 runs after they could not chase down 193. Ravindra Jadeja scored a valiant knock of 61 runs off 181 balls but his efforts went in vain. 

Panesar reckons England were lucky with Mohammed Siraj’s dismissal as the tailender had middled the ball against Shoaib Bashir.

“After a heavy workload of the IPL, India goes and plays a five-Test match series. Every given moment, they turned up. At Old Trafford, they drew the Test match. At Lords, it could have been anyone’s game. They probably should have won that game, but England were very lucky with that wicket of Siraj,” Panesar said in an interview with the Hindustan Times.

“At the Oval, they were brilliant. At the Oval, on the 5th day, overcast conditions, everything went in their favour. So, I think India played better cricket. I think the Oval Test match victory was probably, actually, the moment when it showed that India won the series,” he added.

Panesar said everyone backed England to win the Test series after the retirements of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and Ravichandran Ashwin but the visitors were able to surprise everyone.

“Well, I think everyone took it by surprise. When Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Ravichandran Ashwin retired, everyone thought England would win the contest. But it shows the strength of Indian cricket,” Panesar said.

India was able to come up with a collective effort, especially with the bat. KL Rahul, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant, and Ravindra Jadeja, all scored more than 400 runs in the series.