With the Bazball in full swing, England secured a court jester of a victory as they toppled India by five wickets in Leeds to take the lead in the five-match Test series 1-0. Skippered by Ben Stokes, the English team made a record chase down of 371 runs at their second-best chase attempt at the 378-run chase against India in 2021 at Birmingham.
With the win being a loud message of the English team, it was squared on the loss side of the Indian team, setting their first undesired record in the history of the 148-year-long test cricket game. This case makes India the first team in history to lose a Test match while it scored no fewer than five centuries in the match, two of them by vice-captain Rishabh Pant during both innings. These were contributed by Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill (first innings) and KL Rahul (second innings) as India was able to score 835 runs – its most in a losing cause, and also the third-most runs it ever scored in a Test match played in England.
The display, especially with the bat, of India, was an apparent rebuttal to the critics who were sceptical of this team after the instances of rockstars Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma retiring. But the excellent batting performance was rendered useless when it was an aggressive and fearless batting, with the formulation of Bazball, and was too much to handle on the part of England.
Having scored almost the same number of runs as India in the first innings, with the significant help of Zak Crawley and Harry Brook (99), England easily reached the goal of 371 with the loss of only five wickets.
India also set a fourth-highest record to lose a cause in Test match history, and the second against England, overshadowed only by Pakistan scoring 847 in 2022. The team will now seek redemption in the second test that kicks off July 2 at Edgbaston.
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