Indian cricket legends Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly were left heartbroken after Shubman Gill and his teammates lost the third Test against England in a closely fought contest to go 2-1 down.
In his X post, Ganguly, who made his remarkable Test debut against England in 1996 and capped it with a century, wrote: “What a test match .. India will leave Lords very disappointed .. they played so well all 3 test matches . But down 2-1 ..it was a test match to be won.. jadeja fought hard and showed 193 was not a big total .. @bcci @Teamindiacrick.”
Sachin appreciated the players for the way they fought against the hosts.
“So near, yet so far…. Jadeja, Bumrah, & Siraj fought all the way till the end. Well tried, Team India,” Sachin wrote on X.
“England played well to keep the pressure on and produced the result they desired. Congratulations on a hard fought win,” he said.
England bypassed allrounder Ravindra Jadeja’s stiff resistance along with other tailenders to take a 2-1 lead over India in the five-match Test series at Lord’s in London on Monday.
England, backed by pace bowling brilliance- bowled out India for 170 in the second innings to win the third Test by 22 runs.
England captain Ben Stokes (3/48) and Jofra Archer (3/55) anchored the English spells that broke through the visitors’ defence.
The hosts started celebrating when Shoaib Bashir’s ball defended by Mohammed Siraj kissed the stumps to wrap up India’s fight to chase down 193 on the fifth and final day of the match.
Siraj’s unfortunate dismissal left his senior partner, Jadeja in dismay as the southpaw failed to finish the task after a long-drawn battle of unbeaten 61 off 181 balls.
Prior to Siraj’s fight, Jadeja was supported for long post lunch by Jasprit Bumrah, who survived 54 balls to score five runs.
Siraj’s dismissal may be unfortunate but England sealed a deserving win as India’s entire top and middle-order batting collapsed in the run-chase, which was considered quite an easy task for the visitors, who restricted Stokes’ men to 192 in the second innings riding on Washington Sundar’s fourfer on day four.
Previously, India had equalled England’s first innings total of 387.
The two teams will now play the fourth match after a long gap in Manchester from July 23.
