XtraTime Web Desk: Six years ago on this very day Indian cricket team registered one of their historic Test wins at the Mecca of Cricket in London.
The venue was the iconic Lord’s cricket ground where India beat England by 95 runs to take a 1-0 lead in the five-match series.
There were two major performances in the match from India’s Ajinkya Rahane and Bhuvneshwar Kumar but it was the third and most telling show from fast bowler Ishant Sharm which tilted the match in India’s favour.
Ajinkya Rahane had scored his second Test hundred in the first innings on a green pitch to get his name on the honour’s board at Lord’s in the first innings as India posted 295 in challenging conditions after being put into bat.
England in reply managed to take a 24-run lead with Gary Ballance scoring a hundred. India’s Bhuvneshwar Kumar starred with the ball with six wickets for 82 runs in a whopping 31 overs which kept the visitors in the game.
Heroic knocks from Murali Vijay (95), Ravindra Jadeja (68), Bhuvneshwar (52) and Cheteshwar Pujara (43) took lifted India to 342 in their second innings on Day 4 with England needing 319 runs to win in a little over four sessions left in the game.
In came Ishant Sharma and completely blew the opposition away thanks to some clever thinking by then captain MS Dhoni as he asked his fast bowlers to bowl short at the batsmen and had a trap set for them by placing most of the fielders on the leg-side boundary.
England took the bait and in Sunil Gavaskar’s own words, “committed hara-kiri” in the middle by getting out to balls dug in short by Ishant.
Ishant started with Ian Bell’s wicket, who was had his stumps knocked over by a delivery which kept low.
Captain Alastair Cook was then sent packing as he edged a delivery which left the off-stump after pitching, caught by Dhoni.
At the end of day 4 India had reduced England to 105 for 4 with Joe Root and Moeen Ali surviving the nervous few moments at the end of day’s play.
Root and Moeen survived till the drinks break in the first session with the former reaching his half-century in 122 balls.
Ishant was then introduced into the attack and he immediately responded by taking Moeen’s wicket at the stroke of lunch.
After the break Ishant was at it again as he picked up the wickets of Matt Prior, Ben Stokes, Joe Root and Stuart Broad with the short-ball strategy working wonders for him and the Indian team.
With the backbone of the English batting lineup shattered to bits, Ravindra Jadeja ran out James Anderson with a direct hit to trigger massive celebrations on the field and inside the Indian dressing room.
It was the first time in 28 years that India had won a Test match at Lord’s with Ishant Sharma clinching the man-of-the-match award ahead of Bhuvneshwar thanks to his performance on the final day. The win also ended a run of more than three years without an overseas Test victory for Dhoni’s team.
Unfortunately the Indian team couldn’t capitalise on this victory and carry the momentum in the next three matches as England came back hard and clinched the series 3-1. The five-match ODI series followed soon after which India won 3-1 by beating England in the second, third and fourth matches but lost the one-off T2I at Birmingham to end the tour.