Ishant demolition sees India win at Lord's

England

Cricket365
July 21, 2014

India won the second Test against England at Lord's by 95 runs on Monday, with Ishant Sharma finding inspiration on a flat deck to take seven wickets as England collapsed to 223 all out in their second innings.

India had set England a target of 319 to win, with India only ever winning one Test at the venue, and while the morning session went England's way, the short afternoon belonged to Ishant as he claimed four out of five wickets.

England reached lunch slightly downbeat, as they lost Moeen Ali with the final ball of the session to leave them on 173 for five, still 146 runs behind. They started the afternoon positively, but were all out within the next hour.

England started the day on 105 for four, chasing the 319 India set for victory, and almost the entire morning saw India's bowlers frustrated. Moeen and Joe Root put on a century stand, with Root recording another half ton.

Moeen started the day on 15 and Root on 14, and the pair added 68 more runs to the score, with the match finely in the balance. While they batted slowly, and rarely breached the three per over barrier, India were frustrated.

The pitch had flattened out enough that the batsmen seemed untroubled, despite some variable bounce that saw MS Dhoni standing back to the spinner Ravi Jadeja. Root took advantage of this to make his 50 off 122 balls.

The morning ended on a sour note for England though, as Moeen was removed for 39. Dhoni noticed that the batsman did not enjoy short deliveries from Ishant Sharma, and thus instructed his paceman to bounce them in, and Ali got the deflection to Cheteshwar Pujara on the stroke of lunch.

Matt Prior came out to bat with Root after lunch, and he smacked some pull shots against Ishant that indicated a turn-around in his fortunes. But his revival was short-lived, as he pulled once more and was caught by one of three fielders put in the deep for that purpose.

Ben Stokes soon followed him back to the dressing room, out for a third duck in as many innings, caught by Pujara. That Ishant over also saw Root depart, also trying to pull the short ball, and caught for 66.

Ishant's tactic continued to work as Stuart Broad was rattled, and he eventually gloved a short one down the leg side for Dhoni to take. He'd only made eight runs, bringing James Anderson in to face Ravi Jadeja.

Anderson's run with the bat was not to continue, as he was out for two to bring the game to a close. He tried to steal a single, where there was not one to be found at all, and Jadeja did the honours by removing the bails.

The third Test is in Southampton, where the selectors will be under pressure to decide if Cook should continue as skipper and Prior as keeper, though Cook insisted after the match that both those jobs would stay as is.

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