Bumrah, Ashwin Lead The Way As India Triumph In Second Test

The duo shares six wickets in England’s second innings to help hosts level series in Visakhapatnam with three Tests left

- Somshuvra Laha

VISAKHAPATNAM: In the end, England died by the sword, having preferred to live by it. The most crucial blow came in one swoop dashed in from Shreyas Iyer midwicket and effected a pick-and-throw direct hit that caught Ben Stokes napping with England still needing 179 to win. Defeat wasn't a foregone conclusion with this team though. They continued to fight through a 55-run partnership between Ben Foakes and Tom Hartley before falling to the collective might of Ravichandran Ashwin and Jasprit Bumrah who shared six England second-innings wickets to seal a 106-run win here on Monday.

Coming into this Test without Virat Kohli, KL Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja, India needed their young and experienced to stand up and be counted to avoid losing two Tests in a row. And they did exactly that. Yashasvi Jaiswal scored a double hundred in the first innings, Shubman Gill scored a career-resuscitating hundred in the second but it's Bumrah match haul of 9/91 that proved too much for England.

"Very, very proud of such a young squad in terms of the Test matches that they've played," said India captain Rohit Sharma after the win. "To come up against a team like that, (who) won the first Test match, and then to come out and play like that for us, (it's) very, very positive. When you win a game like that you have to look at the overall performance. We know that winning a Test match in these conditions is not going to be easy, the bowlers stepped up."