But euphoria must not lead to team’s distraction
India's victory in the lord's Test match against England goes beyond the triumph of one team over another. It's an assertion of the Indian cricket team's confidence that the men in blue can “do it” on foreign soil. The lord's win is the first that India has achieved abroad in three years, and it has come at a time when critics had all but given up on a winning performance by the Indians on pitches outside India. The icing on the cake is that the July 21 victory is the first such one at lord's for the country in 28 years — India had won a Test there way back in 1986 — and it came after playing 17 matches there. The win was emphatic and, as skipper MS Dhoni remarked, inevitable, though he was not certain who the eventual victor would be, as England were left to chase a modest target. His uncertainty was understandable, given that in the last Test, the English team had thwarted India's hopes with a record 10th wicket partnership. But no similar miracles were destined this time around, although one must admit that medium pacer Ishant Sharma's seven-wicket haul came close to a miracle, since he had not been keeping consistent form in recent months. His burst — and what an aggressive one it was as he kept the ball short and made it come up to the shin on occasions — demolished the England batting. An indication of how the hosts were flattened can be had from just this figure: At one point England needed 146 runs to win with five wickets in hand, and its fifth wicket partnership had yielded 101 runs. The writing on the wall seemed clear, but Ishant (nudged on by Dhoni) had other ideas. England's batting collapsed after the Indian pacer unleashed a string of short but lethal deliveries. Thereafter, it was all over for the hosts in less than an hour.
But while Ishant stood in the spotlight and basked in the glory of lord's, India's victory was not a one-man effort. Bhuvneshwar Kumar turned in a fine all-round performance, taking six wickets and scoring 36 and 52 runs in the two innings; Ajinkya Rahane cracked a marvellous century, Murali Vijay fell short of a 100 and Ravindra Jadeja chipped in a with a crucial knock of 68 runs to give the visitors a decent score to defend. The team effort becomes all the more scintillating given that nine of the 11 players on the Indian side had not played a Test match before; Dhoni and Ishant were the exceptions.
While India celebrates, there is gloom on the English side, and not just because it has lost — that too at lord's. England has gone without a win in 10 Tests now. While Alastair Cook and his men will look to turn the tide in the coming matches of the Test series, the Indian side must not let the euphoria of the lord's win to distract them from the challenges ahead.