India made sure to dig a hole but got into it themselves. In the first test where the target was so small, they still were not able to chase it. Virat Kohli who looked in form was disrupted in the 2nd India-England Test Match. Here’s what all happened in the 2nd Test.

The match started with the first day being called off due to rain. The 2nd day also was affected a lot by the rain and the same day England was able to bowl India out for just 107. The first innings saw Vijay getting out on a zero, K.L. Rahul on 8, Pujara was unfortunately run out for 1, Kohli made 23, Rahane scored 23, Hardik Pandya 11 and Ashwin scored the highest 29 runs. All other batsmen were bowlers who got out at 0 or 1 run.

From the England side Anderson took 5 wickets, Woakes took 2 and broad and Curran shared 1 each. England came out to bat and very handsomely scored 396-7 declared. From their side, Bairstow made 93 while Chris Woakes scored a century.

In reply, India got out at just 130 which is just 23 above than what they made in the 1st innings. Ashwin was again the highest run scorer with 33 runs not out.

The match ended with England winning with an innings and 159 runs. Nobody surely was expecting such a downfall in India’s performance after what they had done earlier in the T20s and the ODI,s.

Where they went wrong?

The pitch had a lot of swing, uneven bounce, had difficulty in playing but how did then Jonny Bairstow and Chris Woakes scored runs on such a pitch. The reason is somewhat the whole team.

1. The Openers are constantly failing to score runs and giving India a head start. If taken a close look there haven’t been any half centuries that were scored by the openers in either of the 2 matches. This is somewhat demotivating for the whole team. Rohit Sharma is certainly being missed while Vijay goes on scoring zeroes.
2. The full burden on captain- If you saw the first match then you must have seen that it was the Indian captain who scored more than 50% of the runs made by India. There is no support from the middle and lower order that he is getting.
3. The bowling which certainly has been the best aspect of India in the first match was beaten to a pulp by Jonny Bairstow and Chris Woakes.

We as an audience can just comment on how bad our team India is performing and we have all rights to be but we should also not forget how Virat Kohli has led the team to excellence so far. It seemed like there is no competition between India and other countries until we came to England and started losing. Well, all we can do is pray that all this doesn’t get repeated in the future of the India-England test series and hope that the batsmen except Virat Kohli also score runs.