Indian captain Shubman Gill hailed the character and courage that was shown by the lower order in the Lord’s Test against England. Chasing 193 runs for the win, India found themselves in trouble at 112-8.
However, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj were able to show resistance with the bat to keep India in the contest. While Bumrah scored five runs off 54 balls, Siraj scored four runs off 30 balls as both of them gave support to Ravindra Jadeja.
Jadeja, who scored 61 runs off 181 balls, added 30, 35 and 23 with Nitish Reddy, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj respectively to keep India alive.
But eventually, India suffered a heart-wrenching loss of 22 runs to concede a 2-1 lead in the five-match series.
“He [Jadeja] is one of the most valuable players in India,” the Indian captain Shubman Gill said after the final day’s play. “I think the experience that he brings in, the skill set that he brings with his bowling, batting and fielding is someone that is very rare and hard to find. And the kind of composure that he showed today, it was just tremendous to watch. I think batting with the lower order of the tail has been one of the things that we spoke about in the previous two matches, that our lower order of the tail hasn’t been contributing as much. But I think the character and the courage that they showed was tremendous.
“The way we were in the game till the end, it felt like we could go very close if a partnership had added another 10 runs. And I think it’s a very proud effort from the team,” he added.
Gill admitted they didn’t bat well, late on day four and early on the final day. The Indian skipper said it was a chaseable score but they could not deliver as a unit.
“I think we didn’t play as well yesterday and today. I think in the top order, it was important that if we had a partnership of one or two (pairs) worth 50 runs, then we would have seen that after 30-40 overs, it would have been easier to bat. So, that was our effort. But unfortunately, I think this is the first time that we didn’t perform as well as we have done in the series. But it happens sometimes.
“We thought 190 [192] was still chaseable at the end of the day. We had to play 20-25 overs well. We had to try to have a 50-run partnership or two 50-run partnerships. The deeper the match, the easier it would have been for us,” he added.
The fourth Test match between England and India will be played at Emirates Old Trafford, Manchester, from July 23 onwards.
