A disappointed Bumrah touched upon India’s batting lapses in the second innings as the turning point in the Test. India lost their last seven wickets for 92 to fold for 245.
“This is the beauty of Test cricket, isn’t it? Even if you have three good days, you have to keep coming in and keeping up the good performances,” he said. ” I think yesterday [Monday], we fell short with the bat, and we had to come back with the ball. That is the phase where we let the opposition in, and the momentum kept shifting away from us.”
Bumrah credited England’s fighting spirit and their ability to seize the advantage at key moments. “Ifs and buts… if you go back, you could say in the first match if there was no rain, we could’ve won the series, but this is how the game of cricket goes,” he said. “England played really well, they put us under pressure.
“We were even going ahead in the game, but they kept on fighting, and they played better than us in the second innings and won the game. So yeah, hard-fought series, but that’s the ideal result, isn’t it? Both teams played good cricket.”
“He takes his chances. He and Jaddu [Jadeja] really got us back into the game because we were really struggling at that time. [At] 98 for 5 England were on top. They counter-attacked and got us into the game, and we were ahead in the game. That’s the beauty of Test cricket, we’ve got different characters in our team. He [Pant] takes his chances, backs his game, and goes to the hilt. So, very happy for him, he had a very good match.”
“That’s something I don’t decide,” he said. “It was a good challenge. I always like responsibility. That’s the way I’ve always played cricket. It was a new challenge; a lot of great learnings came my way, and I was a lot more involved in the game. Very happy, it was an honour to lead the team. It was a great experience.”