INDIA TOUR OF ENGLAND, 2025
India dropped crucial catches throughout the Test match on a surface that didn’t offer a lot of help. © Getty
Eventually, India’s fight simply ran out in the twilight of the fifth and final day’s play at Headingley. After five days of controlling the tempo but never quite slamming the door shut, they watched England complete a 371-run chase with clinical ease. It was India’s seventh defeat in their last nine Tests, and perhaps the most frustrating of the lot, because they had no business losing it.
India scored 835 runs in the game, produced five individual centurions, including a century in each innings from Rishabh Pant, and still came up short. The reason? Two collapses that came like echoes.
They lost 7 for 41 in the first innings, and 6 for 31 in the second. The first unravelled what could’ve been a demoralising scoreboard for England, who won the toss, and allowed them to come within six runs of India’s 471 and turn the match into a second-innings shootout. The second collapse hit harder, it left India defending 371, a target in the range England have chased before, and one they never looked out of.
Shubman Gill, who began his captaincy tenure with a sparkling first-innings hundred, later revealed that India had aimed for a target “around 435.” Head coach Gautam Gambhir, though, felt the game tilted earlier. “If we could’ve got to 570, 580 in the first innings, we could’ve dominated from there,” he said.
But Gambhir refused to pin the loss on a lack of application from the lower order. Shardul Thakur, picked as a bowling all-rounder to provide some cushion at No. 8, was dismissed playing expansive cover drives in both innings. Prasidh Krishna fell attempting a slog sweep while batting alongside the far more accomplished Ravindra Jadeja.
“Look, first of all, it’s not that they weren’t applying themselves. Sometimes people fail. And that’s okay,” Gambhir said. “I know it’s disappointing. And more importantly, I think they were more disappointed than anyone, because they knew we had the opportunity. It’s not like they’re not working hard in the nets. These things happen. Even proper batters fail. Hopefully they’ll learn, and hopefully we’ll get better performances from our tail. And that is not the only reason we lost the Test match.”
The other big reason was the shoddy catching efficiency. India put down as many as seven catches in the game, with Yashasvi Jaiswal a repeat offender. After shelling three in the first innings, Jaiswal put down another on the final day running in from deep square leg. The reprieved batter on 97, Ben Duckett, went on to compile a match-defining 149. While there were some challenges at Headingley, especially with the slope up and down to the pitch on either end affecting sighting – especially in the slip cordon – Gill said India had to tighten their standards.
“Yes, that was something that we spoke about,” Gill said. “But when you are out there in the middle, it happens so quickly. And I think it would be one of those things that we have to rectify in the upcoming matches. Chances don’t come easy, especially on wickets like these, and we dropped quite a few catches. But I think we have got a young team, still a learning one, and hopefully, in the next matches, we’ll be able to improve on those aspects.”
Gambhir, however, refused to hide behind the ‘young team’ narrative for the loss. “Every defeat is bad. It’s not about a young team or an experienced team. It’s an Indian team. We take pride in winning each and every game for our country. A young team is not an excuse. We represent 140 crore proud Indians. We will try and give our absolute best. There are no excuses. We will turn up every Test match thinking that we can win the test match and win the series.”
Meanwhile, the head coach also confirmed that pace ace Jasprit Bumrah would play only two more Test matches, as per a pre-series plan to manage his workload. But a decision on which those would be wasn’t yet taken. “No, we won’t change the plans. I think for us to manage his workload is more important because there’s a lot of cricket going forward and we know what he brings on the table as well. Before he came on the show, it was already decided that he’s going to play three Test matches.
“But let’s see how his body turns out. We haven’t decided which two other Test matches he’s going to play. [Even without Bumrah] we absolutely have the bowling attack [to compete]. We believe in them. We trust in them. When we pick the squad, we pick the squad on trust, not on hope. As I just mentioned, those are inexperienced bowlers but they will keep getting better. We saw in this Test match as well that for the first four days, even on day five, we were in a position where we could have won the Test match. We believe and we trust that these boys will deliver for us.”
© Cricbuzz
