England lost 10 wickets for just 104 runs as they crashed to a miserable innings and 75-run defeat to India in the fifth Test in Chennai, giving India an emphatic 4-0 series win. Before this match, no other team had lost a Test by an innings after scoring as high a first innings total (477). The highest before this was 432 made by England against Australia in 2001.
The writing seemed on the wall for England after they had crashed to 167/4 from 103/0 in the second session, engineered by Ravindra Jadeja who took three wickets and a spectacular chance. Just when Moeen Ali and Ben Stokes were providing a glimmer of hope to England with a 63-run stand, Ali threw it away with a horrible shot, trying to skip down and clear the in-field off a Jadeja delivery but unable to clear Ravichandran Ashwin.
England crumbed after that. Ben Stokes chipped to short mid-wicket to give Jadeja his fifth wicket of the match. Amit Mishra’s google had Liam Dawson completely baffled, as he lost his wickets and Umesh Yadav had Adil Rashid caught in the off-side through a leading edge. Stuart Broad hung around for 16 balls for a single run, but as usual, Jadeja had one to catch his glove and lob away to short-leg. Fittingly, he got the last wicket of Jake Ball to finish with a career-best 7/48 and India a 4-0 series win.
It was a crushing fall from grace for England who would have thought that they had started the game impressively, getting to 477 in their first innings, courtesy Moeen Ali’s 146 and battling half-centuries from Liam Dawson and Adil Rashid. But India responded even more emphatically despite cheap scores by Cheteshwar Pujara (16) and Virat Kohli (15). KL Rahul scored 199 but his Karnataka teammate Karun Nair went even better as he hammered a massive unbeaten 303, only the second Indian to score a Test triple century. India declared on 759/7, their highest-ever Test score.
For England, there is only one takeaway from this series: find spinners of the calibre of Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar. Of course, the big question is: From where?
Brief scores:
India 759/7 declared (Karun Nair 303 not out, KL Rahul 199; Stuart Broad 2/80, Liam Dawson 2/129) beat England 477 (Moeen Ali 146, Joe Root 88; Ravindra Jadeja 3/106, Ishant Sharma 2/42) and 207 all out (Keaton Jennings 54, Alastair Cook 49; Ravindra Jadeja 7/48, Ishant Sharma 1/17) by an innings and 75 runs