Dr Cricket wrote:https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/cricket/england-india-fifth-test-alastair-cook-joe-root-virat-kohli-anderson-a8533416.html?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1536691381
a very good article here.
"The baseline facts are these: India have scored more centuries and taken more five-wicket hauls. The series’ top run-scorer (Virat Kohli), its two highest innings and arguably its four best knocks (Kohli at Edgbaston, Cheteshwar Pujara at Southampton, KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant here) have all come from India. India have had the more consistent seam attack, the better top four and the better top six. And yet, India have succumbed to their worst defeat since England whitewashed them here in 2011.
It was a worse scoreline than their 3-1 defeat here in 2014, and yet a far superior performance. Unlike four years ago, when MS Dhoni’s side posed the interesting metaphysical question of whether a cricket team can be both present and on the plane home at the same time"
"But as a leader, Kohli has been found wanting. He has often been guilty of chasing the ball when it comes to field positions, of overusing bowlers who are not producing and underusing bowlers with the ability to change the game. And you wonder whether his semi-deific status within Indian cricket, while driving him to new heights as a player, has quite the opposite effect on his team-mates. With the exception of Ishant Sharma and - fleetingly - Pujara, India’s senior players have been a disappointment."
"But all that can wait for now. A series that was billed at its outset as the apex of India’s rise to greatness, and dismissed after two games as a damp mismatch that portended the death of Test cricket, ultimately ended up as neither. It has, quite simply, been riotously good fun: two flawed teams fighting tooth and nail and throwing up an all-action Hollywood blockbuster. And like a Hollywood blockbuster, sometimes it’s best not to try to make much sense of it."
As entertaining as the knocks produced by Rahul and pant were today they definitely weren't in the best knocks of the series
With the series lost and an enormous target of 470 they were able to play with freedom on by far the flattest pitch of the 5 matches
Sam currans 63 at Edgbaston and 78 at Southampton although being lower scores and maybe not as aesthetically pleasing were the two knocks that decided the series
Had the young lad not produced under that immense pressure India may well have won the series 3-2