Gill, Deep, Siraj script historic Edgbaston win

Shubman Gill celebrates after scoring a 161 in the second innings at Edgbaston.
With a 269 in the first innings, he became the only batter in Test history to score
a double hundred and a 150+ in the same match. -- Reuters

India made up at Edgbaston, Birmingham, for what they missed at Leeds.

By defeating England by a huge margin of 336 India registered their first ever victory last night at this ground, where they had, since 1967, played eight Tests (excluding this one) and lost all except one which ended in a draw.

Rain was a threat. In fact yesterday morning's play was suspended. Luckily for India, skies cleared by afternoon.

Before this Test started on July 2, there were worries about the composition of the team: will India be able to bowl out England twice without their ace pacer Jasprit Bumrah?

But, they did. 

In England's first innings, Mohmmed Siraj scalped six and Akash Deep the remaining four.

In the second innings, Akash Deep took six and the remaing four were shared by Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Ravinder Jadeja and Washington Sundar.

Gill's memorable Test

Shubman Gill, to use a cliche, played a captain's knock in both innings, scoring 269 in the first and 161 in the second. 

His aggregate of 430 runs is the second-highest by any batter in a single Test, only behind Graham Gooch’s 456.

Gill became the first player in Test history to score a double century and a 150+ in the same match.

He also set the record for the highest score by an Indian captain in England.

Batters clicked this time

For India, the main problem in the first Test was that barring one or two, all the other batters just flopped. That wasn't the case here.

Not just Shubman Gill, others too clicked.  

In the first innings, Ravindra Jadeja scored 89, Yashasvi Jaiswal 87, Washington Sundar 42, and Karun Nair 31.

In the second innings, Ravindra Jadeja scored 69, Rishabh Pant 85, K L Rahul 55 and Yashasvi Jaiswal 28.

This helped India post good totals in both innings -- 587 and 427/6 declared.

Bazball tactic fails

When England chased down successfully 371 at Leeds, it was said to be a vindication of their Bazball tactic. 

"Bazball" refers to the aggressive, risky style of cricket adopted by the England Test team under the guidance of coach Brendon McCullum (whose nickname is "Baz"). The idea is to look for a win rather than for a draw.

But that just didn't work here. One, because of the pressure of the huge score India had mounted. And two, in both innings, Indian bowlers seemed to extract a better response from the surface.

England's first innings (407) was a pathetic show; very much like how India fared in the Leeds Test. Barring Harry Brook (158) and Jamie Smith (184), none contributed anything. The highest individual score after these two was 22 by Joe Root!

In England's second innings, they had a victory target of 608 with more than a day's play remining. It was definitely a steep climb, and considering they were already one up in the series, the traditional approach would have been to stay around to end the match in a draw rather than lose the Test.

But this time around, Indian bowling was definitely better than at Leeds, and English wickets began to tumble at regular intervals. They were all out for 271, losing by 336 runs, the second biggest margin of defeat against India.

New era

The victory is clearly a morale-boosting one for India. The five-Test series has now been levelled. 

India's new Test captain, Shubman Gill, is not only doing well individually with the bat, but also seems to be steering team in the right direction.

The third Test

The next match in the five-Test series begins on Thursday, 10 July, at Lord's.