After failing to defend 378 runs against England and losing the Test match, Indian media vituperate their cricket team and also raised questions about the place of Virat Kohli in the team.
In the 5th Test match of the series played at Edgbaston, the Indian team was in trouble after losing five wickets for 98 runs, but Reshabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja strengthened their position in the match by scoring centuries as well as a partnership of 222 runs.
Pant scored 146 and Jadeja 104 as India scored 416 in the first innings.
In reply, despite Bairstow’s excellent century, the English team was all out for 284 runs and lost 132 runs in the first innings.
In the second innings, Chattiswar Pujara and Pant’s innings of 66 and 57 respectively gave the visitors 245 runs to give England a target of 378 runs to win the match.
The openers gave England a 107-run lead in pursuit of the target, but then added two runs as England lost three wickets in a row, including the two openers.
After losing 3 wickets for 109 runs, Joe Root and Johnny Bairstow put on a 269-run stand to smash India’s aspirations which lead their team to a victory and level the series by 2-2.
Despite taking a strong position against England, the defeat is not ready to be digested by the Indian media and it has criticized the bowlers for their mediocre performance as well as questioned the performance of former captain Kohli, who has suffered a permanent setback.
The Times of India wrote that the performance of the visiting team was not efficient and the bowlers also bowled without any control.
Describing the Indian bowlers’ performance in the two-Test series against South Africa as “the best ever”, the newspaper repoted the bowlers failed to bowl in the fourth innings with full efficiency and at the right line and length.
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Former India captain Virat Kohli, age 33, is going through the worst period of his career and has not scored a century since 2019 and newspaper ‘The Hindu’ reported that now the time has come to address the dressing room problem.
The newspaper wrote that India’s next Test match is in December but did Kohli do what Chattiswar Pujara did and played the proper first class cricket to restore his form.
The popular Indian magazine praised the English team for their excellent form, as well as Joe Root and Bairstow for scoring the best centuries under pressure.
Young fast bowler Jaspreet Bumrah was leading the Indian team in the match as captain Rohit Sharma was not available for the match due to a victim of covid.
However, despite pressure from the leadership, Bumrah played an impressive individual game as usual.
The fast bowler took 5 wickets in the match and he was the only successful Indian bowler with 2 wickets in the second innings.
‘The Hindu’ wrote that Bumrah is in the best form of his career and is like a flowing river, if Bumrah does not stop himself no one can stop him but despite the best fast bowler of India who is out to root , could not disturb Joe Root even for a moment from which his batting skills can be gauged.