09 March 2024 , 08:31
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England ended their tour of India in poor fashion as yet another batting collapse saw them slip to defeat by an innings and 64 runs inside three days in Dharamsala.
The series has been defined by England's propensity to lose wickets in clusters and it was perhaps fitting that it was concluded by another. Ravichandran Ashwin ran riot on day three, ripping through the team to secure the victory and a 4-1 win in the series.
The day began with a moment of triumph for the tourists, with Jimmy Anderson taking his 700th wicket in Test match cricket. The 41-year-old seamer had Kuldeep Yadav caught behind with a canny piece of bowling to became the first fast bowler in the history of the game to reach the landmark.
Unfortunately for his team, that wicket made the score 477-9 after England had made just 218 after winning the toss and choosing to bat first. England's outstanding performer, Shoaib Bashir, claimed the final wicket in the next over to take a well-deserved five-wicket haul, but by then India had claimed a 259-run lead on first innings.
England overturned a 190-run deficit to claim a remarkable victory in the first Test in Hyderabad, but that astonishing comeback felt like a long time ago as they embarked upon the second innings in the foothills of the Himalayas. Ashwin (5-77) bamboozled the top order once again and it was only Joe Root (84) and Jonny Bairstow (39) - playing his 100th Test - who put up any kind of resistance.
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The match and the series ended when Root tried to hit first-innings hero Kuldeep for six, but only succeeded in picking out Jasprit Bumrah on the boundary. They were 113-6 when Ben Foakes was bowled by Ashwin and only reached 195 thanks to Root's partnership with Bashir (13), who put up some resistance before he was castled by Ravindra Jadeja (even if he tried to review it).
Jimmy Anderson took his 700th test wicket (Gareth Copley/Getty Images)England arrived in India with worries over their spin department, with Bashir, Tom Hartley and Rehan Ahmed making a very inexperienced trio. But in the end it was their batting, full of experienced players, which defined their series.
Root only came good in the final two matches, while his fellow middle-order batters Bairstow and Ben Stokes struggled to make their mark. Although they didn't fire in Dharamsala, Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett generally got their team off to strong starts, but after his miraculous 196 in Hyderabad, vice-captain Ollie Pope fell flat.
India were missing big guns like Virat Kohli, but it didn't matter, with Rohit Sharma backed up by Yashavi Jaiswal at the top of the order. The hosts' bowling attack, led by the spin trio of Ashwin, Jadeja and Kuldeep, were simply too good for England's batters.